Combating Torture
Conectas appointed to the CNPCT
After five months of waiting, the presidential decree appointing the members of the CNPCT (National Committee to Combat and Prevent Torture) for the next two years was finally published in the Federal Gazette this Friday, December 23.
Conectas Human Rights will take a position as a representative of civil society organizations. The lawyers Rafael Custódio and Vivian Calderoni will be the full and alternate representatives of Conectas, respectively, on the Committee.
The CNPCT was created by federal law 12,847/2013 to help combat torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in detention facilities, by proposing actions and programs geared towards the eradication of torture in Brazil, by monitoring administrative and judicial investigation procedures and by following through on the recommendations resulting from inspections made at detention centers.
The members of the CNPCT were chosen last July, but only now has the composition been made official by the government. The delay drew criticism from civil society organizations, which called on the Minister of Justice, Alexandre de Moraes, and the Human Rights Secretary, Flávia Piovesan, for the swift appointment of the new members.
Chaired by the Minister of Justice himself, the Committee will have 11 other representatives from the government and one each from the Brazilian Bar Association, the Federal Psychology Council, the CUT (Brazil’s leading trade union), IBCCRIM (Brazilian Criminal Sciences Institute), ASBRAD (Brazilian Association for the Defense of Women, Childhood and Youth), ANCED (National Association of Centers for the Defense of Children and Adolescents), Conectas Human Rights, the Bahia State Section of the Torture Never Again Group, ISER (Institute for Religious Studies), the NGO Justiça Global, RENILA (National Inter-Center Network of the Anti-Asylum Movement) and the Maranhão Society of Human Rights.
