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TITLE:  BRAZIL HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE:  FEBRUARY 1995

                             BRAZIL


Brazil is a constitutional federal republic comprising 26 states
and the federal district.  In 1994 voters elected a new
President, two-thirds of the Senate, 513 federal deputies,
27 governors, and members of state legislatures.  It was the
second time since the end of military rule that Brazilians
freely chose their President and renewed the legislative bodies
in accordance with the 1988 Constitution.  Fernando Henrique
Cardoso became President on January 1, 1995, and will serve a
4-year term, reduced from 5 years by a 1994 constitutional
amendment.

Security forces in Brazil fall primarily under the control of
the states.  State police are divided into two forces:  the
civil police, with an investigative role, and the uniformed,
"military" police, who are responsible for maintaining public
order.  According to the Constitution, the states' military
police must serve as army reserves; they maintain some vestiges
of military privileges, including special judicial systems.
Brazil's federal police force is very small and plays little
role in maintaining internal security.  The military police
courts (distinct from the armed forces' courts-martial) are
overloaded, seldom conduct rigorous investigations of fellow
officers, and rarely convict them.  The separate system of
state military police courts creates a climate of impunity for
police elements involved in extrajudicial killings or abuse of
prisoners, which is the single largest obstacle to altering
police behavior to eliminate such abuses.

Brazil exports primary products and has a large industrial
sector.  Gross domestic product was $456 billion in 1993, and
the economy grew at a rate of 5 percent in 1994.  The
Government issued a new currency in July and brought down the
rate of inflation from 50 percent a month to less than 2
percent by September.  Large disparities in income distribution
continued, with the poorest fifth of the population receiving
only 2 percent of the national income, while the richest tenth
hold 51 percent.

The most serious human rights abuses continued to be some
instances of extrajudicial killings and torture committed by
the police.  Justice is slow and unreliable, especially in
rural areas where powerful landowners use violence to settle
land disputes and influence the local judiciary.  In urban
areas, the police are frequently implicated in killings and
abuse of prisoners, but the special police courts rarely
investigate effectively or bring the accused to trial.  Regular
courts did take up two high-profile cases of extrajudicial
killing, and both cases were still pending at year's end (see
Section 1.a.).  The poor, predominantly from racial minorities,
bear the brunt of most violence, whether committed by the
police or by criminals.  Indigenous peoples, despite
constitutional guarantees, remain the victims of abuse and
neglect, with continued invasions of their land.  Laws against
forced labor are not adequately enforced, and children are
exploited in the sugar and charcoal industries.  A free press
and active human rights organizations expose abuses and demand
action to stop them.  The Federal Government has made efforts
to respond to human rights abuses.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1  Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
           Freedom from:

     a.  Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

Extrajudicial killings continued to be a serious problem
throughout the country.  There are no reliable statistics on
the number of people that police, vigilante groups, or hired
gunmen murder annually.  City morgue statistics frequently fail
to distinguish between murder and accident victims.  The police
investigations in 90 percent of the cases were insufficient for
any judicial action, according to a recent study of 3,236
homicide victims in Rio de Janeiro by the Higher Institute for
Studies of Religion (ISER).  In Sao Paulo, the official
statistics on the number of civilians killed by police fail to
include those who are wounded and die later in the hospital.
According to these statistics, the number of civilians killed
by Sao Paulo state's military police dropped from an average of
86 per month in 1991 and 1992 to 21 per month in 1994.  No
national figures are available, but this drop in killings in
Brazil's largest city is significant.  Both lethal and
nonlethal confrontations with police have fallen steadily since
1991.  Human rights groups attributed this decrease to the
state government's appointment of a new state secretary for
public security who made clear that abuses would have to stop.
This leadership, along with courses in human rights, internal
transfers, and the threat of punishment reduced the number of
killings.

The special police courts have not yet tried the 120 police
accused of the 1992 Carandiru prison massacre.  The police
prosecutor predicted he would conclude this case with
convictions in early 1995, but other lawyers following the
trial estimated that it would take much longer.  (Police courts
are special courts with jurisdiction over the state police; see
Section 1.e.)

In Rio de Janeiro, the execution-style killing of street
children continued, according to reliable reports from
organizations aiding the youths.  Five policemen, indicted for
the July 1993 killings of eight street children in downtown
Candalaria square, were still in jail awaiting trial by regular
courts.  Their case was kept out of the special police courts
because they were not on duty at the time and apparently did
not use police equipment in the crime.  Similarly, the regular
court system is trying the cases of 33 members of the police
gang accused of murdering 21 Vigario Geral residents in 1993,
but the number of the defendants and appeals involved means the
case is moving very slowly, with no trial date set.  One of the
defendants escaped from custody of his fellow policemen; two
others fled before being arrested.

Despite efforts to prosecute the most notorious police crimes
and to improve training, the Rio de Janeiro state government
made little progress in stopping the high number of murders in
Rio de Janeiro.  Some crimes appear to be politically
motivated, such as the murder of two black Workers' Party (PT)
activists June 13.  Unknown gunmen killed the two PT members
shortly after they denounced police crimes at a party meeting
to discuss security issues; police investigating the murder
accused a common criminal.

On October 31, the Government sent in the armed forces to
control crime in Rio de Janeiro, placing civil and military
police forces under the command of a general.  The joint
military-police operations to seize arms and drugs in Rio's
slums have been essentially nonviolent and popular with the
city's residents.  Military authorities denied allegations of
illegal searches and arrests, saying they have worked closely
with judges to obtain the necessary warrants.  The authorities
are investigating media reports of beatings and mistreatment.

In the state of Sao Paulo, the June 11 murder of a union
organizer and his wife, members of the Socialist Party of
Unified Workers (PSTU), appeared to be a professional killing,
with few clues found by police investigators.  Colleagues of
the couple in the town of Sao Carlos believe they were killed
to prevent a repeat of the successful strike they organized
against the local sugar refineries in 1993.

Throughout Brazil, local human rights organizations point to
excessive use of force by police.  The police killed Fernando
Neves, an employee of the Sao Martinho association for street
children, shooting him four times as he rode his bicycle home
crossing the path of police pursuing a car thief.  Neves'
family received threats for demanding an investigation, and the
police officers identified by an internal inquiry as
responsible for the shooting remained on active duty.  Rio de
Janeiro's governor acknowledged police abuses, including
summary executions, in the October 18 raid against drug gangs
in the Nova Brasilia slum that resulted in 13 deaths.  In the
southern state of Santa Catarina, state military policemen were
accused of shooting an unarmed, escaped prisoner 12 times.  The
authorities in Rio Grande do Sul held state military policemen
responsible for the killing of a prisoner in his hospital bed;
he had been recovering from wounds received in a gunfight that
left a policeman dead.

The Luiz Freire Cultural Center/Legal Advisory Service, a
prominent human rights group in the northeastern state of
Pernambuco, reported the number of murders there were on the
increase, with a total of 1,847 between January 1993 and July
1994.  In those cases in which the killers could be identified
by some evidence, the group attributed 11 percent of the
murders to extermination squads and 5 percent to police.

In the northeastern state of Alagoas, the governor's temporary
appointment of an army colonel to command police forces in 1993
dramatically reduced the number of murders involving the state
military police.  The Permanent Forum against Violence in
Alagoas, a locally prominent human rights group, implicated the
police in only 56 out of the 434 murders in Alagoas in the
first half of 1994, in contrast to 1992 when human rights
monitors attributed 80 percent of 600 homicides to police
forces.

A high crime rate, a failure to apprehend most criminals, and
an inept criminal justice system all contribute to public
acquiescence in police brutality and killings of criminal
suspects.  Acts of intimidation, including death threats
against witnesses, prosecutors, judges, and human rights
monitors, often hindered investigation into these incidents.
Sao Paulo state military police prosecutors Stella Kuhlman and
Marco Antonio Ferreira Lima received death threats warning them
to stop investigating police crimes; Kuhlman found a bloodied
doll and a miniature casket left inside her office as a
warning.  Another Sao Paulo prosecutor investigating police
corruption, Eliana Passarelli, was threatened.  In Rio de
Janeiro, judges, the chief prosecutor investigating police
links to organized crime, and workers aiding street children
have all received death threats.  An international lawyers'
committee report emphasized the extraordinarily high rate of
threats against judges and lawyers in Brazil.

In rural areas in the north and northeast, landowners often
intimidated judges, lawyers, and police by violence and threats
of violence.  For example, in the northern state of Para, the
mayor of Xinguara and several landowners stand accused of
plotting the murder of a rural union leader in 1991, but their
cases have yet to be tried.  In 1994, eight persons were
killed, three escaped attempts on their lives, and several
families fled Xinguara after learning their names were on the
landowners' "death list."  These death lists include not just
rural union leaders, but anyone believed to be on the side of
squatters, such as shopkeepers who sell to them.  Landowners
also threatened three Catholic priests, including father
Ricardo Rezende of the neighboring town of Rio Maria.  Local
officials, who are linked to the mayor, took no action to
investigate the killings or to protect those on the death list.

On June 23 in Rio Maria, where six rural union leaders have
been gunned down since 1985, the authorities tried the man
accused of the attempted murder of union leader Carlos Cabral.
The defendant confessed to firing the shots, and witnesses
testified that he earlier had offered them money to kill
Cabral.  The local jury ruled the crime was not premeditated,
however, and the judge gave the gunman a suspended sentence.
In contrast, when a court granted a change of venue from Rio
Maria to the state capital of Belem 600 miles away, a jury
convicted the ex-policeman hired to kill Cabral's two fellow
union leaders.  The judge sentenced the killer to 50 years in
prison, but he escaped with three other inmates on October 24.
The authorities have not brought any of the landowners who
contracted for the killings to trial.

However, on December 16 the courts convicted a gunman, and the
ranch foreman who hired him, of killing union leader Expedito
de Souze in 1991, and sentenced them to 24- and 21-year prison
terms.  However, the ranch owner--also accused of the
crime--failed to appear for trial.  Despite a warrant for his
arrest, he remains at large (see Section 1.e.).

The Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) reported
that land disputes resulted in 52 persons murdered in 1993, and
the CPT reported 37 such murders in the first 10 months of 1994.

The high level of crime and the failings of the judicial system
also contribute to public tolerance of vigilante lynchings of
suspected criminals.  Lynchings occurred in all regions of the
country, but the state of Bahia had the record number of
lynchings--84--in 1993, and mobs killed 15 persons there in the
first 8 months of 1994.  In Salto de Lontra, in the southern
state of Parana, a mob took an accused murderer out of the
police lockup in April and killed him while police watched.

There continued to be reports of murders of homosexuals, where
the identity of the killers remains unknown.  In the Porto
Alegre area, such assailants murdered five transvestites, while
others have been beaten and robbed.  On October 8, a military
police court in Sao Paulo reduced the sentence of a policeman
convicted of killing a transvestite from 12 to 6 years, noting
that being a transvestite was a "high risk" activity.
Prosecutors said they would appeal the decision, and several
prosecutors and law professors characterized the court's action
as illegal.

     b.  Disappearance

There were no reports of politically motivated abductions.
Human rights groups often blamed the police or vigilante groups
for the disappearance of street children or persons believed to
be criminals.

     c.  Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
         Treatment or Punishment

The Constitution prohibits torture and contains severe legal
penalties for torture or acquiescence in it.  Yet the absence
of any law defining torture has led to nearly total impunity.
On June 23, a divided Supreme Court ruled on a torture case;
five justices voted to absolve a policeman, based on the
argument that Congress had failed to incorporate torture into
the Penal Code, but six justices prevailed to convict the
defendant based on the statutes defining norms for juvenile
justice, which specify penalties for torture.  (The victim was
a minor when he was beaten into confessing a crime in August
1991.)

There are frequent credible reports that police beat and
torture criminal suspects to extract information, confessions,
or money.  In Rio de Janeiro, law enforcement officials have
acknowledged that physical abuse of prisoners is common, and in
September the civil police established a special unit to
investigate charges of torture.  In the state of Ceara, the Bar
Association reported that a police inspector charged with one
case of torture in 1993 was later found to be involved in 16
other incidents, but the inspector remained on the force while
criminal proceedings continued more than a year later.

Brazil's overcrowded prisons held 128,465 inmates in space
designed for 51,368.  There are often six to eight prisoners in
a cell meant for three; some prisoners force others to pay for
the use of a bed.  The Ministry of Justice reported that
rebellions average 2 per day, attempted or successful escapes,
3 per day.  The Archbishop of Ceara, Aloisio Lorscheider, after
investigating conditions at a prison near Fortaleza on March 15
(and being held hostage temporarily), reported to the city
council about torture of prisoners, "food not fit for
cockroaches," and lack of hygiene.

     d.  Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

The Constitution limits arrests to those caught in the act of
committing a crime or those arrested by order of a judicial
authority.  The authorities usually respect the constitutional
provision for a judicial determination of the legality of
detention, although some convicted inmates are held beyond
their sentences due to poor record keeping.  The law permits
provisional detention for up to 5 days under specified
conditions during a police investigation, but a judge may
extend this period.  However, the police sometimes detain
street youths illegally without a judicial order or hold them
in incommunicado detention.

     e.  Denial of Fair Public Trial

The judiciary is an independent branch of government, but in
many instances it is unable to ensure the right to fair trial.
The judicial system, with the Federal Supreme Court at its
apex, includes courts of first instance and appeals courts.
States organize their own judicial systems but must adhere to
the basic principles in the Federal Constitution.  Brazil also
has a system of specialized courts dealing with police, labor,
elections, juveniles, and family matters.

Special police courts have jurisdiction over the state military
police; the record of these courts shows that punishment is the
exception rather than the rule.  A human rights group in the
northeast, studying police crimes against civilians judged in
police courts over two decades (1970-1991), found only 8
percent of the cases resulted in convictions.  In Sao Paulo,
another study found that only 5 percent result in convictions.
The courts (which are separate from the courts martial of the
armed forces, except for the final appeals court) are composed
of four ranking military police officials and one civilian
judge.  With too few judges for the caseload, there are
backlogs, and human rights groups report a lack of zeal among
police charged with investigating fellow officers.  An attempt
in Congress to pass a law giving ordinary courts jurisdiction
over police crimes against civilians remained stalled in 1994.

Defendants are entitled to counsel and must be made fully aware
of the charges against them.  In cases in which a defendant
cannot afford an attorney, the court must provide one at public
expense; courts are supposed to appoint private attorneys to
represent poor defendants when public defenders are
unavailable, but there is often a de facto lack of defense.
Juries try only cases of willful crimes against life; a judge
tries all others.

The right to a fair public trial, as provided for by law, is
generally respected in practice, although in rural areas the
judiciary is less capable and more subject to the influence of
local landowners, particularly in cases related to indigenous
peoples and rural union activists.  Local police are less
zealous in investigating, prosecutors are reluctant to initiate
proceedings, and judges find reasons to delay when cases
involve gunmen contracted by landowners to eliminate squatters
or rural union activists.

The need for judicial reform is widely recognized because the
current system is inefficient, with backlogs of cases and
shortages of judges.  In Manaus the authorities took no action
in 80 percent of the crimes against life that should have gone
to juries, due to insufficient police action to gather evidence.
Out of 176 townships in the northeast state of Pernambuco,
73 do not have a judge.  Low pay, combined with exacting
competitive exams that in some years eliminate 90 percent of
the applicants, makes it difficult to fill vacancies on the
bench.  Due to the backlog of cases, under the Brazilian system
where a trial must be held within a certain period of time from
the date of the crime (similar to a statute of limitations),
old cases are frequently dismissed.  According to a former
judge, this encourages corrupt judges purposely to delay
certain cases so they can be dismissed.

     f.  Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
         Correspondence

The Constitution provides for freedom from arbitrary intrusion
into the home.  There were no reports of illegal entry for
political reasons, but illegal entry into homes without a
warrant occurs in searches for criminal suspects.  A women's
rights group in the city of Porto Alegre reported suspected
police involvement in five break-ins at its offices--each time
its files on spousal abuse and finances were ransacked.
Wiretaps are unconstitutional except when authorized by a
judicial authority for purposes of criminal investigation and
prosecution.  The inviolability of private correspondence is
respected.

Section 2  Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

     a.  Freedom of Speech and Press

The 1988 Constitution abolished all forms of censorship and
provides for the right to free speech and to a free press.  The
authorities respect these rights in practice.  The press and
broadcast media routinely discuss controversial social and
political issues and engage in investigative reporting.  Most
radio and television stations are privately owned; but the
Government controls licensing authority and politicians
frequently obtain the licenses.  Eighteen television and 115
radio stations are owned by current or former congressmen, some
of whom are or were members of the committee overseeing
communications.  Newspapers and magazines, which are privately
owned, vigorously report and comment on government performance.

Congress is considering changing the penalty for libel under
the 1967 Press Law--a prison term--which judges consider
extreme.  The Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper called current legal
regulation of the press "an archaic and authoritarian press law
inherited from the military regime."  The 1994 Inter-American
Press Association (IAPA) report on freedom of the press in
Brazil said, "there has been increasing recourse to the (1967)
press law, especially by the executive and the judiciary,
against journalists."  According to the report, the courts
tried seven journalists and a labor leader for libel and
defamation of character under this law after complaints by the
executive branch; they jailed one and freed the others as
first-time offenders.  Lucio Flavio Pinto, an independent
journalist in Belem, Para state, had to close his weekly
newsletter in order to defend himself against the suits brought
by the owners of the city's major newspaper for libel and
defamation under the 1967 press law.  The IAPA also called for
an investigation into the February killing of a newspaper
publisher in Vitoria da Conquista, Bahia state.  In the state
of Sergipe, four journalists received death threats after
criticizing the police in their newsletter.

Foreign publications are widely distributed in Brazil; prior
review of films, plays, and radio and television programming is
practiced only to determine a suitable viewing age.

Academic freedom is respected.

     b.  Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

The Constitution provides for the right to assemble peacefully,
and this right is respected in practice.  Permits are not
required for outdoor political or labor meetings, and such
meetings occur frequently.

     c.  Freedom of Religion

There is no favored or state religion.  All faiths are free to
establish places of worship, train clergy, and proselytize,
although the Government controls entry into Indian lands.

     d.  Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
         Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation

There are no restrictions on movement within Brazil, except for
the protected Indian areas, nor are there any restrictions on
emigration or return.  Some towns in the south, however, were
reported to be trying to block the entry of poor migrants from
the north.  Brazil admits few immigrants, does not formally
accept refugees for resettlement, and is selective in granting
asylum.

Section 3  Respect for Political Rights:  The Right of Citizens
           to Change Their Government

The Constitution provides for the right of citizens to change
their government through free elections, and citizens exercised
this right in 1994, filling executive and legislative offices
throughout the country.  Brazilians chose the President,
two-thirds of the Senate, 513 federal deputies, 27 governors,
and members of state assemblies from a multitude of parties and
alliances.

Voting is secret and mandatory for all literate Brazilian
citizens aged 18 to 70, except military conscripts who may not
vote.  It is voluntary for minors aged 16 to 18, for the
illiterate, and for those aged 70 and over.

Women have full political rights under the Constitution, and
they are becoming active in politics and government.  In the
1994 elections, voters elected 1 female governor and 34 women
to the Chamber of Deputies (out of 513 seats).  Five women
serve in the Senate (out of 81).  The 1988 Constitution gave
Indians the franchise, but their ability to protect their own
interests is severely limited (see Section 5).  Eight Indian
candidates ran for office in 1994, but none was elected.