Amnesty International annual report points to setbacks in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The negligence of the Jair Bolsonaro government in fighting the pandemic has imposed severe setbacks to the country, in addition to the death of more than 337,300 people by Covid-19.

The assessment is made by the well-known NGO Amnesty International, which in a report released today, has denounced the advance of extreme poverty and violence in Brazil.

The president’s actions during the health crisis not only did not prevent thousands of lives from being taken but also allowed for the increase of social inequality, the increase of homicides by police officers, femicides, and the murder of environmental and human rights activists, as well as violations of freedom of expression.

In a report on the state of human rights globally, Amnesty International records that in Brazil, the Bolsonaro government has not acted to contain the health crisis. Yesterday, the country broke a new record, with 4,211 deaths in 24 hours. For the entity, negligence has caused the country to fail in all aspects of confronting the pandemic, both in health actions, as in social and economic ones.

According to the entity’s executive director for Brazil, Jurema Werneck, the government “sabotaged” the fight against the pandemic more than it helped to contain it. For Jurema, the administration should be held responsible for the deaths by Covid-19, many of which could have been avoided with measures such as mass vaccination.

Social inequality has deepened and pushed 27 million more people into extreme poverty, living on less than R$246 a month (about R$8 a day), between August 2020 and February this year, according to data projected by FGV think tank.

According to the NGO Brazilian Research Network on Food and Nutritional Sovereignty and Security, hunger has increased and, for the first time in 17 years, 116 million Brazilians – more than half the population – are in a situation of food insecurity, without the guarantee that they will have food on the table. The pandemic left 19 million Brazilians hungry in 2020, 9% of the population, almost double the number recorded in 2018.

The report considers that economic aid programs for low-income people were insufficient and precarious. Beneficiaries have had difficulty registering for the program amid allegations of a lack of transparency.

In the health area, Bolsonaro’s denialist agenda caused the number of deaths from Covid-19 to explode as Brazil became the country with the second-most deaths from the disease, behind the United States.

In more than 150 countries, the NGO says that the Brazilian government used the pandemic as a pretext for human rights violations to increase in 2020. The crisis was also used to hide the advance of deforestation and the action of illegal gold miners and land grabbers.

Amnesty International’s Werneck says that the pandemic does not justify, in itself, the setbacks in the country. “The main reason for this setback is the authorities’ negligence to protect the population from the impacts of the pandemic,” she says. “The pandemic became a smokescreen to hide persecution and human rights violations that were already happening and have worsened since 2020.”

During the pandemic, the protection of natural resources and traditional territories was neglected as “government structures to protect indigenous peoples and the environment was further dismantled and weakened.” According to the NGO Global Witness, the report also cites that the country has become third-worst in the killing of human rights and environmental defenders, behind only Colombia and the Philippines.

When talking about attacks on activists, it cites Marielle Franco’s assassination in 2018, with no punishment for those responsible.

Another problem seen by the report is the increase in cases of feminicide, with the lack of effective public policies to combat violence against women. The femicide rate increased in 14 of Brazil’s 26 states between March and May 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. In Acre, cases rose by 400%.

Police-induced homicides also increased by 7.1% compared to 2019. At least 3,181 people – 79% black – were murdered by police between January and June 2020. The prison population took a back seat and was “deprived of the right to health care” without adequate measures against Covid-19.

The report also notes that the Bolsonaro government has threatened freedom of expression and attempted to restrict journalists’ work.

The document released today is in line with what was recorded by the international NGO Human Rights Watch in January, which stated that “Bolsonaro has sabotaged the fight against the pandemic in the country.”

Valor has contacted the federal government’s press advisors but did not respond as of the close of this edition.

Source: Valor

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