Former Ministers release manifesto in favor of human rights

On October 1st, during the webinar "Construction and Dismantling of National Human Rights Policies in Brazil", all former ministers and secretaries of state, from several governments, will release a historic manifesto. The document seeks to raise awareness and mobilize society to the setbacks imposed by the current federal government regarding public policies for Human Rights.

The event is part of the Cycle of Memories of the Brazilian Institutional Policy on Human Rights, an initiative of the IEA's Research Group on Human Rights, Democracy and Memory (GPDH) for the biennium 2021-2022 and the Center for Studies of Contemporary Culture (Cedec).

Read the full manifesto.

For the Reconstruction of State Policies on Human Rights in Brazil

1. Human rights are constitutive principles of democracy. The unequivocal fight for their promotion and safeguard unites all people who, like us, are committed to overcoming the unfortunate page of the civil-military dictatorship in our history, so that something similar may never return.
   
2. During the recent process of democratic transition – itself the result of repressed aspirations of the entire Brazilian nation – political parties, social movements, and civil society organizations converged in demands for a return to democracy, with the Rule of Law and social justice. The 1988 Constitution resulted from the commitment of all relevant parties and groups in Brazilian politics. It carries the construction of a social and democratic Rule of Law in its foundations, its norms, and its programs. Therefore, our constitutional order laid its foundations on a broad social-civilizational and patriotic project, whose purpose was to improve the institutions and structures of Brazilian society in order to eliminate inequality, violence, and iniquity.
   
3. The re-democratized Brazilian state was in harmony with the most important initiatives for the promotion of human rights in the international sphere. Since the early days of the New Republic, Brazilian diplomacy has played a prominent role in promoting multilateral agreements, peaceful solutions to conflicts, and other forms of cooperation that represented the most relevant advances in human rights. Brazil's stance made it respected and a reference for other countries, because its diplomatic action has led, in the external sphere, to the Brazilian state's commitment to human rights, while, in the internal sphere, the government strove to realize such rights.
   
4. The Vienna World Conference on Human Rights organized by the UN in 1993 represented an extraordinary impulse for the theme around the world, particularly for Brazil. Since its preparation, an open dialogue between government and civil society was established, creating a relationship that was later expanded and strengthened. With the consensual adoption of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, negotiated under the Brazilian presidency, human rights became an essential element of all public policies, acquiring an unprecedented instrumental position. To follow up on and put into practice the recommendations of the Conference, the Brazilian State sought to become adequately institutionalized, giving rise to the creation of competent bodies at the three levels of the federation, which worked through consultation and in cooperation with civil society, including for the preparation of national plans.
   
5. The National Secretariat for Human Rights (Secretaria Nacional de Direitos Humanos – SNDH, in Portuguese), initially conceived as a special agency linked to the Ministry of Justice, was created in 1997, during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration. In January 1999, it was transformed into the Secretariat of State for Human Rights of the Presidency of the Republic, giving its incumbent the status of Minister of State. Its creation reflected the federal government's commitment to the recognition, protection, and promotion of human rights.
   
6. The federal government has consolidated its political-institutional action through human rights policies carried out in partnership with the other federal branches, in conjunction with state and municipal governments, and in important collaboration with civil society organizations. Between 1995 and 2002, the transformations in the human rights agenda are undisputable: the Council for the Defense of the Rights of the Human Person (Conselho dos Direitos de Defesa da Pessoa Humana – CDDPH, in Portuguese) was modified, and the Commission on Human Rights and Minorities (Comissão de Direitos Humanos e Minorias – CDHM, in Portuguese) of the Chamber of Deputies was created. In 1995, the Interministerial Work Group for the Valorization of the Black Population was installed, the first initiative to institutionalize the promotion of racial equality, which inspired proposals and initiatives such as the adoption of affirmative action and the land titling of quilombola communities. In 1996, as recommended by the Vienna Conference, the National Human Rights Program (PNDH-1) was launched, followed in 2002 by PNDH-2, which incorporated specific actions for economic, social, and cultural rights. The Law of Torture (Law 9,455/97), the recognition of the deaths of missing persons due to political participation (Law 9,140/95), and the Statute of Refugees (Law 9,474/97) were promulgated. Also in 1996, the Program for the Eradication of Child Labor (Programa de Erradicação do Trabalho Infantil – PETI, in Portuguese) was created, which, in 2005, was integrated into the Bolsa Família Program. The government has also sought to improve the open and constructive dialogue with international instances of human rights monitoring, such as the visit of the UN Rapporteur on Torture, by invitation and with governmental support. The confirmation of the practice of this crime in prisons led to the strengthening of measures to prevent and punish it, including the Permanent National Campaign to Combat Torture. The preparation for the Brazilian participation in the III World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (Durban, 2001) mobilized broad sectors of Brazilian society to formulate unified stances against racism, giving Brazil regional and international prominence in the matter since then.
   
7. In January 2003, the first year of the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Special Secretariat for Human Rights, the Special Secretariat for Women's Policies, and the Special Secretariat for Policies to Promote Racial Equality were created. These Secretariats integrated the institutional architecture of the Presidency of the Republic and, as a result, their incumbents became Ministers of State.
   
8. During this period, we witnessed continuity accompanied by significant innovations in national human rights policies. The third version of the National Human Rights Program (PNDH-3) was approved, built with broad popular participation, and articulations were initiated for the future materialization of the National Truth Commission (CNV). The constitutional amendments against slave labor and the reform of the Judiciary were enacted, as well as the Maria da Penha Law, which is a landmark in the women’s fight against domestic violence, and the Statute of the Elderly (Law 10,741/03). The National Council to Combat Discrimination and Promote the Rights of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Travestis, and Transsexuals (Conselho Nacional de Combate à Discriminação e Promoção dos Direitos de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis e Transexuais – CNDC/LGBT, in Portuguese) was also installed, and the System to Guarantee the Rights of Children and Adolescents (SGD) was institutionalized and strengthened (Conanda Resolution 113/2009). Policies were adopted to reserve vacancies for Afro-Brazilians in federal public tenders and in the admission to federal universities and institutes (laws 12,711/12 and 12,990/14) and the rights of the descendants of quilombos to own land were guaranteed (Decree 4,887/2003). The National Plan for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – Living without Limits – was launched, and the Brazilian Law for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (Law 13,146/15) was sanctioned. Finally, we highlight the National Plan for Education in Human Rights and the creation of the National System for Socio-Educational Services (Sistema Nacional de Atendimento Socioeducativo – Sinase, in Portuguese), which opened a new perspective for the application of this type of measure.
   
9. Dilma Rousseff's administration, the first female president of the Brazilian Republic, endeavored to give unprecedented institutional visibility to women, Black people, and LGBTQIA+ persons by appointing them to top positions. Her government continued the implementation of PNDH 3 and took new initiatives for the promotion of human rights. Noteworthy is the enactment of the law of the National Truth Commission (Comissão Nacional da Verdade – CNV) (Law 12,528/11), aimed at promoting truth and memory, whose final report documented the crimes against humanity committed on behalf of the Brazilian State during the civil-military dictatorship and identified the agents responsible for them. Also, in the same period, the National Committee and the National Mechanism for Preventing and Combating Torture were created as part of the national system (Law 12,847/13) and the Council for the Defense of the Rights of the Human Person was transformed into the National Human Rights Council (Law 12,986/14). The Humaniza Redes Program was launched in 2015 to combat hate speech and human rights violations in social networks/social media. The Report on Homophobic Violence in Brazil was produced and the System of Safeguards of Rights of the LGBT Person was launched in 2014. In 2013 the government signed the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance; and the Inter-American Convention against All Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance. We also highlight the prominent international participation in the negotiation of the UN Agenda 2030, which led to the creation, in 2016, of the National Commission for the Sustainable Development Goals.
   
10. These policies have brought advances in the most different areas of education, health, and social security; in the rights related to gender and racial equality; of the elderly, children, and adolescents; of traditional, quilombola, and Indigenous populations; of urban and rural workers; of persons with disabilities; of homeless people; and of sexual orientation and gender identity. Their impacts have been enhanced by the integration of human rights policies with social policies and by the transversality of their objectives and structures. This is the case of the agrarian reform policy, which received unprecedented encouragement between 1999 and 2015, combined with incomes policies and policies to promote gender equality. Although for most of the time and in some areas the results have been limited by budgetary constraints or had ambiguous effects due to the pressures of fiscal and monetary adjustments, no government since the re-democratization has questioned the Rule of Law and social justice as structural axes of the Brazilian democratic constitutional order.
    
11. With the 2016 parliamentary coup that resulted in the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, the Presidency of the Republic and the Congress have promoted legal reforms responsible for destroying the rights of working men and women and restricting pension rights. They approved Constitutional Amendment 95, which imposes a cap on public spending, carried out budget cuts in social policies, reduced investments, and limited the scope of social policies. Ministries responsible for important public policies, such as the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Social Security, and the Ministry of Agrarian Development, were abolished. The extinction of the National Agrarian Ombudsman Office left the federal government without any instrument for the prevention and monitoring of agrarian conflicts and violence in the countryside, which showed a significant increase in 2019 and 2020, according to reports by the Pastoral Land Commission. That rupture opened space for the authoritarian inflection that is imposing itself on our current political and social horizon.
    
12. The current governing authorities explicitly speak in favor of torture, abjure the duties of truth and memory assumed by the Brazilian State, and pay unreasonable homages to the civil-military dictatorship. In addition to offenses and direct attacks on our institutions, they adopt a senseless revanchist stance that represents a threat to democracy and the Rule of Law, since they put into motion attitudes and narratives that are directly contrary to the Constitution and to International Human Rights Law.
    
13. At the beginning of the current administration, the Ministry of Human Rights was transformed into the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights. Commissions, councils, and working groups were dissolved or weakened, interrupting ongoing policies to promote rights, such as those aimed at combating torture and promoting transitional justice measures. The systematic interdiction of participation and social control of public policies has added to the budget cuts, affecting health, social assistance, and education policies, as well as imposing setbacks notably in the promotion, defense, and protection of the rights of children and adolescents.
    
14. The current minister adopts a fundamentalist biblical vision to impose policies of anti-equality, with a patriarchal and familialist character. During her administration, the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights promotes, together with other ministries and federal agencies, reinterpretations of constitutional rights and international human rights norms and directives, based on religious stances, perspectives of the extreme right, and very serious retrogressions in the application of existing norms. The National Council for Human Rights is under attack from the government itself, which appointed its president without following the regular selection procedures and determined budget cuts to make its action unfeasible. A working group was formed without any participation from the National Human Rights Council and civil society in order to change the PNDH 3, an action that will mischaracterize it and divert it from its original objectives.
    
15. We have observed a frontal and direct attack on the achievements in terms of women's rights and gender issues, notably on sexual and reproductive rights, with the decharacterization of the Secretariat for Women's Rights and Brazil's regressive international performance in human rights and social issues bodies, such as the World Health Organization. In parallel to this, the current federal government has dismantled bodies, such as the former Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality (Secretaria de Promoção da Igualdade Racial – Seppir, in Portuguese), and the policies for the protection of Indigenous and quilombola populations, promoting the massive violation of their rights, especially with regard to land demarcations, in actions of genocidal character. Xenophobic normative and administrative measures restricted the right to request asylum and created summary deportation, in clear disrespect for the international principle of non-refoulement and Brazilian immigration and refugee laws.
    
16. In attitudes strongly contrary to the provisions of the human rights agenda, the government, through several bodies and agencies, insists on measures that facilitate access to heavy weapons and ammunition by various groups, some of which, like the so-called “militias”, have illicit purposes, cause damage to the integrity of citizens, and increase the risks of armed confrontations that have little to do with ensuring law and order.
    
17. The federal government promotes or facilitates environmentally destructive actions that violate the rights of the affected populations, especially traditional, Indigenous, quilombola, and riverine populations, and are harmful to the national heritage. It goes against all and any sustainable development policies and seeks to make the construction of a common future unfeasible. In several fields, such as the promotion of culture, education, and research in science and technology, the current government has made drastic cuts in resources that have led to the interruption or limitation of the activities carried out. The policies adopted by previous governments are disqualified almost on a daily basis, and the current leaders of federal agencies promote actions contrary to the purposes for which they were created. The Access to Information Law is being violated and the Transparency Portal is being dismantled. The government has recently sent to Congress a draft bill that de-characterizes the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet (Marco Civil da Internet, in Portuguese), repeating the Provisional Measure already rejected by the Senate and the Federal Supreme Court.
    
18. In several fields, such as the promotion of culture, education, and research in science and technology, the current government has made drastic cuts in resources that have led to the interruption or limitation of the activities carried out. The policies adopted by previous governments are disqualified almost on a daily basis, and the current leaders of federal agencies promote actions contrary to the purposes for which they were created. The Access to Information Law is being violated and the Transparency Portal is being dismantled. The government has recently sent to Congress a draft bill that de-characterizes the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet (Marco Civil da Internet, in Portuguese), repeating the Provisional Measure already rejected by the Senate and the Federal Supreme Court.
    
19. At the international level, Brazil has lost its role of prominence and mediator to take reactionary positions. It has become a pariah, if not a follower of groups opposed to human rights, liberal democracy, and gender equality rights while promoting a supposedly traditionalist and ultra-conservative vision of the West.
    
20. The explicit guideline of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when headed by Ernesto Araújo, for diplomats to interdict any mention of “gender” in international documents, had the broad acquiescence and enthusiasm of Minister Damares Alves. Another example is Brazil's entry into ultraconservative initiatives in international law, such as the so-called Geneva Consensus Declaration, whose intention is basically to promote international setbacks in women's rights and gender debates, alongside theocratic and illiberal countries, and that again had the broad support of the current Minister of Human Rights.
    
21. The policies of the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the limited emergency aid/stimulus checks provided for people in situations of social and economic vulnerability, show, through the negationism and bad example of the President of the Republic and his followers, an overwhelming insensitivity to the deaths and suffering of hundreds of thousands of Brazilian citizens. His almost pathological obsession with maintaining a power that he legally holds, despite not exercising it in a dignified and republican manner, leads him to insist on attitudes and policies that are very close to the crime of genocide.
    
22. These deliberate violations, the dismantling of policies, and the rejection of commitments to human rights highlight the current government's direct attack on Brazilian democracy. We, human rights secretaries and ministers of the governments since the redemocratization, publish this manifesto to condemn the actions taken by the federal government and defend democracy and the reconstruction of human rights policies in Brazil.
    
23. Our manifesto is added to those of ministers and leaders in the areas of environment, education, culture, and women's rights who came to the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo (USP) to express similar concerns.
    

It is urgent that all people who have fought and continue to fight for democracy, for the Rule of Law, and for social justice in Brazil publicly express their repudiation of the human rights and anti-democratic policies of the current government. It is essential that a strong and precise message for the reconstruction of human rights policies be part of the campaigns of all democratic candidates in next year's presidential election, and that the agenda for renewing those policies be discussed as a central point of their candidacies.

São Paulo, October 1st, 2021.

José Gregori Gilberto Vergne Saboia Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro Nilmário Miranda Mário Mamede Filho Paulo de Tarso Vannuchi Maria do Rosário Nunes Ideli Salvatti Pepe Vargas Nilma Lino Gomes Rogério Sottili