The Jair Bolsonaro government (PL) this week sent its version of the human rights situation in Brazil to the United Nations. The document is part of a procedure that regularly assesses the human rights situation in each of the UN member countries.
The report sent by the Brazilian State, however, presents a series of suppressions and distortions of the reality in which the country finds itself, as in the field of public security and the fight against torture.
The UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR), as it is called, aims to assess what the government has done to ensure the protection and promotion of the human rights of its population, as well as to combat systematic violations, following recommendations made by the other members of the United Nations.
Although it received more than 50 recommendations related to the topic of public security in the last period, the federal government chose not to give priority to this topic in its report. This reflects the lack of commitment in the fight against police lethality and mass incarceration that mostly affect the black, poor and peripheral population of the country.
The government seems to ignore one of the most serious markers of human rights violations in the country: systemic and structural racism. According to data from the 15th Brazilian Public Security Yearbook, almost 80% of the people killed by the police in 2020 were black, while 66.3% of the population deprived of liberty in the same year was also black.
In relation to the practice of enforced disappearance, there is mention of alleged efforts made by the Brazilian State. However, there is still no domestic law to define the conduct as a crime, so that it can be determined as such and find legal support — including for the State to be held accountable for a crime committed by its agents or for omissions regarding the investigation and protection of the victims.
In the same way, the issue of the justice system is treated. Only the initiatives of the Judiciary in relation to the confrontation of torture in the country are indicated. There are no Executive or Legislative initiatives aimed, for example, at reducing the incarceration rate, as recommended in the last period of the UPR.
In fact, in the fight against torture in Brazil, it is possible to affirm that there has been a great setback, since the federal government not only failed to propose initiatives that would strengthen the National System for Combating and Preventing Torture, but also actively contributed to its emptying since the first year of Bolsonaro’s term, in 2019.
It is evident that the Brazilian government’s version is limited to listing the ratification of international treaties and conventions, even if it has not complied with them internally. The scarcity of spaces for participation and dialogue with civil society, the constant lack of transparency in the provision of accurate data and information and the dissemination of disinformation are characteristics of the current federal administration.
Without the bare minimum to discuss the protection and promotion of human rights, it is impossible to guarantee public policies that, in fact, serve the entire Brazilian population — especially those sections most vulnerable to structural racism.
In this sense, it is necessary that civil society organizations and other collectives and social movements have an active participation in spaces such as the UPR, to denounce the actions and omissions of the State, so that there is international constraint that makes it assume a commitment. effective in protecting human rights.
