NGOS condemn removal of Deborah Duprat from Brazil’s Human Rights Council

Prosecutor-General Augusto Aras has dismissed the sub-prosecutor-general, who was serving a two-year term on the body for the promotion and defense of human rights

(Photo: Geraldo Magela/Senate News Agency)

Nearly 200 civil society organizations have spoken out in defense of the independence
of the CNDH (National Human Rights Council), following an irregular maneuver by the
Prosecutor-General Augusto Aras, who has proclaimed himself the representative of
the State on the body.

On Monday, December 2, Aras substituted in an authoritarian way the government
representative on the Council, Deborah Duprat, a sub-prosecutor-general and member
of the Office of the Federal Prosecutor for the Rights of the Citizen, who was serving a
term on the body that lasted until May 2020. By law, members of the CNDH Presiding
Board must be chosen by a full session of the Council for a two-year term.

“It is not natural to dissolve participation councils; it is not natural to remove council
members from office; it is not natural to appoint bionic presidents to the presidency of
councils; it is not natural to infringe elected members; it is not natural to remove from
office a council member elected vice president in the middle of their term – even when
all this is passed off as natural or as formal with the appearance of legality,” reads the
document.

 

• Read the statement in full here