Bolsonaro to Face International Pressure Over Pandemic

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A document prepared by national and international bodies will be processed this week in Geneva by the UN Human Rights Council, while other accusations will be submitted over the next few days. In addition, the organization has been collecting information on Brazilian policy regarding the coronavirus, raising the pressure on a government with an already worn-out external image.

The debate on the pandemic will be at the heart of the Council’s agenda this week, with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, submitting a report on the international situation. Organizations such as CONECTAS and the Arns Commission vow to use the opportunity to denounce Brazil.

Another initiative is being led by organizations such as Amazon Watch, ‘Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil’ (Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil – APIB), CONECTAS ‘Direitos Humanos’ (Human Rights), ‘Conselho Indigenista Missionário’ (Indigenous Missionary Council – CIMI), ‘Fundação Luterana de Diaconia’ (Lutheran Deaconry Foundation – FLD), ‘Geledés – Instituto da Mulher Negra’ (Black Woman Institute), ‘Tortura Nunca Mais’ (Torture Never Again) Group – ‘Bahia, Ilê Omolu Oxum’, Vladimir Herzog Institute, ‘Terra de Direitos’ (Land of Rights) and others.

For these organizations, “the failure by public authorities to develop comprehensive actions to contain the pandemic” should be considered a violation of human rights. According to them, such negligence particularly affects the population that most needs state support in providing essential services and emergency aid.

Among the aspects stressed by the group is what they term “elements of religious fundamentalism” that advocate a “single religious truth, the denial of science, contempt for the Covid-19 deaths and the pressure to classify the churches as an essential activity”.

“According to an ideological far-right policy, the organization of a “liturgy of death” places obstacles in the way of vulnerable groups accessing basic emergency income,” they caution. One aspect of the denunciation refers to the situation of exactly the portions of society that saw themselves most exposed to the pandemic.

“The COVID-19 crisis has aggravated the situation of women living in poverty, affecting the income of 11 million women, 52.6 percent of them black,” they say. “Housemaids were included in the category of essential services by local government decrees, thereby making them even more vulnerable. Domestic violence increased during the pandemic, at a rate of 30 percent (under notification),” they point out.

The austerity measures introduced by Constitutional Amendment 95/2016 are also denounced in this context. According to the organizations, it “establishes a 20-year freeze on social spending, with a significant reduction in public spending”.

“Under the social and economic crisis, the rhetoric ‘save the economy’ has enhanced a regressive agenda of workers’ rights, enabling reduced wages and suspension of contracts during Covid-19 and denying the inclusion of a number of professional categories in the Basic Emergency Income scheme,” they said.

The black population’s situation was also the subject of the document. “In May 2020, official data shows that Afro-descendants in São Paulo are 62 percent more likely to die from Covid-19. Blacks who endure inadequate housing conditions, unemployed and in the casual labor market will be the most impacted by the pandemic,” they said.

Authoritarian gestures

In the same document, the group still alerts to “authoritarian gestures” and human rights violations by the government. “The collective also reports a number of actions by the Brazilian government to reject human rights violations committed by the state during the 1964 dictatorship,” they say.

“In the two years under Bolsonaro’s command, the heads of the three armed forces, the President and the Vice President praised the action of the armed forces on the anniversary of the Military Coup, on March 31st”, they pointed out.

“On May 4th, 2020, the President welcomed and honored Sebastião Rodrigues de Moura, Major Curió, through an official social media, by declaring him a “man of honor. The reserve colonel was denounced by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office for torture, murder, and concealment of a corpse and was directly involved in the repression of the Araguaia guerrilla force, in Pará, in the late 1960s, and was at the head of the “Casa Azul,” a clandestine torture center, in Pará,” the document states.

“The authoritarian gestures do not only point to the past. Bolsonaro has taken part in and supported protests against the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and the National Congress and expressed his support for the implementation of a new AI-5,” they criticize.

“Military officers hold central government portfolios – such as the Chief of Staff of the Presidency, with Army General Walter Braga Netto and General Pazuello in the Ministry of Health and Army Officer Wagner Rosário at the head of the Comptroller General of Brazil. Around 3000 members of the Armed Forces have been appointed to positions in the federal administration, a number greater than that of the military dictatorship”, they complete.

Source: UOL