CA blog
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19 May 2020
Public Note #17 – The President has lost the conditions to remain in office
Jair Bolsonaro has lost all the conditions for the legitimate exercise of the Presidency of the Republic, due to his incapacity, authoritarian vocation, and the threat he represents to democracy.
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11 May 2020
The Arns Commission sends an official letter to the National Council of Justice demanding COVID-19 preventive measures in prisons
The Arns Commission has supported the Institute for Defense of the Right to Defense (IDDD) in a request to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) so that provisional, sexagenarian, and chronically ill prisoners who have not committed serious crimes can serve their sentences in home detention or wait for their trial out of custody in order to contain the spread of COVID-19 in prisons.
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22 Apr 2020
The Arns Commission demands urgent measures from Moro to protect Indigenous lands
Faced with the possibility of a catastrophic death toll among Indigenous peoples, and even the extinction of some groups, the Arns Commission demands that the Ministry of Justice and Public Security mobilize its Security Forces to prevent the invasion of Indigenous lands and to expel, in accordance with the law, invaders from all such lands, as well as from areas interdicted for the protection of isolated peoples.
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21 Apr 2020
Public Note #16 – In support of IACHR Resolution on the Pandemic and Human Rights in the Americas
The Arns Commission asks all partner entities that defend human rights to be aware and learn about the aforementioned Resolution, as well as to disseminate it widely through all their communication mechanisms, sending the recommendations to the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary authorities from all different government levels.
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7 Apr 2020
Pact for Life and for Brazil
For the first time in Brazil’s history, the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB), the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), the Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns Commission for the Defense of Human Rights (Arns Commission), the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), the Brazilian Press Association (ABI), and the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC) have united around a Pact for Life and for Brazil, in the duty to alert and represent Brazilian civil society. The organizations have joined forces to call for the union of the entire Brazilian society, all its citizens, governments, and powers of the Republic, and form a broad alliance to face the serious health, economic, social, and political crises that the country is experiencing.
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6 Apr 2020
Organizations call for UN investigation for praises to the military coup
On April 1st, the Arns Commission, the Brazilian Bar Association, and the Vladimir Herzog Institute, among other organizations, sent a petition to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), requesting that Brazilian authorities be investigated for commemoration and acclaim of the military coup of 1964.
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31 Mar 2020
Public Note #15 – Statement on COVID-19 and Indigenous peoples: the State’s responsibility
The Arns Comission express its solidarity with Indigenous peoples, as well as the professionals, leaders, and institutions that work to protect them. And we encourage the institutions of the Justice System to take the necessary measures to defend Indigenous peoples.
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30 Mar 2020
In defense of Human Rights
On March 19th, the Institute for Defense of the Right to Defense (IDDD), in partnership with the Arns Commission, filed a request to be admitted as amicus curiae in a lawsuit to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) in defense of the National Mechanism for the Prevention and Combat of Torture (Mecanismo Nacional de Prevenção e Combate à Tortura – MNPCT, in Portuguese).
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25 Mar 2020
Public Note #14 – For the health of poor people
The Arns Commission calls on the whole society to continue and strengthen solidarity actions, as well as calls on public authorities to fulfill their obligations, in order to meet social needs that have been accumulated due to their negligence.
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3 Mar 2020
At the UN, the Arns Commission denounces risks of ethnocide and genocide
Representing the Arns Commission, journalist Laura Greenhalgh referred to the frequent statements made by the Brazilian president and high-ranking officials: "It seems that the Indigenous peoples are seen by the current government as obstacles to be removed, one way or another.” She added: "The systematic attacks against Indigenous lands are a way of promoting their genocide, given the close relationship that these peoples have with their lands. The imposition of conditions on the lives of these groups is intentionally leading them to annihilation.”
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20 Feb 2020
Public Note #13 – In repudiation of the attacks against the journalist Patrícia Campos Mello
We hope that Brazilian society will react against this authoritarianism that has been undermining the daily lives of Brazilians, in a country with such serious and urgent challenges to tackle.
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27 Dec 2019
Public Note #12 – Statement regarding the attack against the production company Porta dos Fundos
The Arns Comission express solidarity with all the members of Porta dos Fundos. Freedom of expression is a non-negotiable right, an achievement of our young democracy, and we can never put it at risk.
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8 Dec 2019
Public Note #11 – Preventing violence by the private security sector
Although the crimes were committed by "security guards", who are often outsourced, one must not fail to recognize the civil liability of the legal entities or individuals, who hold power in these spaces used for criminal conduct, and in some cases, the criminal liability itself, for the reparation and consequences of these criminal acts.
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6 Dec 2019
The Arns Commission monitors allegations of torture in prisons
On December 4, the president of the Arns Commission, José Carlos Dias, participated in a public hearing convened by the Commission on Human Rights and Minorities of the House of Representatives, in Brasilia, to discuss the denouncements of torture involving the Penitentiary Intervention Task Force (Força-Tarefa de Intervenção Penitenciária – FTIP, in Portuguese) in several Brazilian states, especially in Ceará and Pará.
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2 Dec 2019
Public Note #10 – In repudiation of police violence in the community of Paraisópolis
The Arns Commission calls on all sectors of society to say “enough” to the State’s arbitrariness and violence, which mainly affects the young and Black population that lives in Brazilian peripheries.
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25 Nov 2019
The Arns Commission meets with the Washington Office on Latin America (Wola)
A US non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting human rights, the Washington Office on Latin America (Wola) hosted the Arns Commission (AC) and Conectas Human Rights in its headquarters in the US capital. The Arns Commission was represented by Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida, a political scientist and one of the founders of the organization, and Conectas was represented by Camila Asano, an internationalist. At the meeting, they discussed the cooperation between the three organizations in order to give more visibility, in the United States, to the agenda for the defense of human rights in Brazil.
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23 Nov 2019
Public Note #9 – In memory of Rabbi Henry Sobel (1944-2019)
Sobel will always be remembered for those days of pain and fearlessness. However, his trajectory lies beyond those moments. Human rights defenders in Brazil know that they were able to count on the rabbi's support and words at crucial moments.
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13 Nov 2019
Public Note #8 – Threats to democracy and human rights
By proposing the adoption of exceptional measures absolutely foreign to the Constitution and the democratic regime it establishes, Eduardo Bolsonaro once again performed an act of absolute lack of commitment to fundamental rights, the separation of powers, the federation, and popular voting, which are all values protected as stony clauses by article 60, paragraph 4 of the Federal Constitution of 1988.
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12 Nov 2019
The Arns Commission and Human Rights Lawyers Collective denounce the President of the Republic to the International Criminal Court
Jair Messias Bolsonaro was denounced to the International Criminal Court for “crimes against humanity” and “incitement to genocide of Indigenous peoples of Brazil”. An initiative from the Arns Commission and the Human Rights Lawyers Collective (Coletivo de Advocacia em Direitos Humanos – CADHu, in Portuguese), the complaint will be analyzed by the Court, which may determine an investigation against the Brazilian president.
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6 Aug 2019
Public Note #7 – In defense of scientific and research institutions
Other attacks devoid of well-founded arguments and, therefore, pusillanimous and cowardly, have been perpetrated by the President of the Republic and his ministers against national science and research.
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