Arns Commission denounces human rights violations in Jacarezinho to the UN

The Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns Commission for the Defense of Human Rights has filed an Urgent Appeal to the United Nations (UN), an international measure to denounce serious human rights violations related to the deaths of 28 people in the Jacarezinho community, in Rio de Janeiro's North Zone.

The purpose of the appeal is to alert and denounce to the international community the arbitrary actions committed during Operation Exceptis, which was carried out by the Civil and Military Police of Rio de Janeiro and culminated in the massacre.

The document was forwarded to four UN mechanisms: special procedures for summary executions, contemporary forms of racism, people of African descent, and extreme poverty. According to the document, the evidence gathered so far indicates the indiscriminate practice of extrajudicial executions against the civilian population of that community.

"The civil police claim that those killed in the massacre were involved in criminal activities. It is worth highlighting that international law is emphatic in establishing that the life history of an executed person is not an element that justifies such a violation or that exonerates or diminishes the responsibility of the State, which is assumed by ratifying human rights conventions through an internal and sovereign process,” affirms José Carlos Dias, president of the Arns Commission.

Also included in the document sent to the UN is the Arns Commission's action in Brazil to appeal to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) on the judgment of Claim of Non-Compliance with a Fundamental Precept (ADPF) No. 635, which authorizes police operations in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro during the COVID-19 pandemic only in very exceptional cases. According to the Arns Commission, until now the authorities have not demonstrated the exceptional nature of the operation, nor the measures taken to avoid extrajudicial executions during the execution of the arrest warrants.

Other cases in Rio de Janeiro were cited in the Urgent Appeal. They prove the Brazilian State’s recurrence before the UN rapporteurships, in episodes dealing with police brutality in territories densely populated by Black and poor people, such as the massacres that occurred in the communities of Fallet-Fogueteiro (AL BRA 9/2019), Complexo da Maré (AL BRA 10/2018), and in the various operations that caused the deaths of five children (AL BRA 7/2017).

The Arns Commission requested the UN bodies that the Brazilian State carry out a prompt, impartial and effective investigation, especially in its initial, evidence-gathering phase; that it seriously consider the hypothesis of extrajudicial execution; and that it structurally modify the approaches of its police operations to avoid killings of Black people, young people, and residents of the peripheries. It also requested an apology, in view of the mistaken attitude of attributing the criminal behavior of those killed as a basis to justify the atrocities committed during the operation.

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Photo: Roberto Parizotti - Fotos Públicas