Brazil denounced in OAS for cuts in health and education

Seventeen organizations claim government and legislature are pushing through measures that threaten the Constitution and international treaties

On Tuesday, December 6, the IACHR (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the OAS) will discuss with civil society organizations and representatives of the federal government legislative bills and measures proposed by the Executive that, according to the organizations, pose a threat to human rights in Brazil. Topping the list of initiatives that will be denounced in the Commission – the most important body for monitoring violations on the continent – is Amendment 55/16 (Amendment 241/2016 in the Lower House of Congress), which freezes public spending in areas such as health and education for twenty years, limiting increases to the previous year’s inflation. The amendment will be voted in the second round in the Senate on December 13.

If Amendment 55/16 is approved, warn the organizations, the health budget for the next twenty years will be reduced by R$433 billion – the forecast is from the National Council of Municipal Health Departments. Education, meanwhile, will see cuts of around R$32 billion by 2025, according to data from the Budget and Financial Oversight Consulting Office of the Lower House of Congress, which will make it impossible to comply with Brazil’s National Education Plan.

“Considering the forecasts for the growth and aging of the Brazilian population, a zero real increase in public spending means that per capita spending will effectively be lower,” said the organizations in a document submitted to the IACHR commissioners. “In practice, this will result in an erosion of the social rights achieved over the past decades, affecting primarily the most vulnerable social groups that depend exclusively on public services,” they added.

The organizations also mentioned international norms that will be violated if the amendment is approved. One example are the guidelines of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the UN for the application of austerity measures. According to this Committee, any such measure should be temporary and proportional, non-discriminatory, consider all the available alternatives and guarantee the participation of the affected groups and individuals. “Amendment 55 does not meet any of these requirements,” said the organizations.

List of setbacks

Besides Amendment 55/16, the organizations will also denounce what they call a “dismantling of the structure” of public policies on human rights: the dissolution of the Ministry of Racial Equality, Women, Youth and Human Rights and the suspension of programs such as Provita (Program for the Protection of Threatened Witnesses and Victims), PPCAAM (Program for the Protection of Threatened Children and Adolescents) and PPDDH (Program for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders) by a decree signed by the Ministry of Justice.

These initiatives by the federal government, say the organizations, “conflict with international commitments for the realization of human rights, whose legal frameworks recommend and require the construction of an institutional structure for their implementation”.

Another case to be mentioned at the hearing of the IACHR is the dismissal of Ricardo Melo, the CEO of the public broadcasting company EBC (Empresa Brasileira de Comunicação), and the dissolution, by a provisional executive order, of the company’s Board of Trustees – formed mainly by civil society representatives.

The organizations will also highlight the use of the “criminal organizations law” to persecute activists and social movements, as well as police violence at demonstrations, in particular the repression of the protest that occurred at Brasília’s “Esplanade of Ministries” on the day Amendment 55/16 was voted in the first round in the Senate. “The exercise of the right to freedom of expression, which should be guaranteed under the democratic rule of law, was transformed into a battlefield on which heavily armed police officers brutally repressed citizens in the nation’s capital,” reads the document.

This is the first series of thematic hearings staged by the IACHR since the inauguration of President Michel Temer and it will be held in Panama City instead of Washington, in the United States, where the Commission is based. The change of location is due to the serious financial crisis that has affected the IACHR since the start of the year.

The organizations will make their presentation to the commissioners and to representatives of the Brazilian government, who will have the right to contest the information that is presented. The hearings are intended to inform the Commission about specific rights violations or threats of setbacks.

This week’s hearing will be broadcast live on Tuesday, December 6, starting at 2 pm Brasília time (11 am Panama time) on the website www.oas.org.