Espírito Santo: Brazil ignores the UN

Special rapporteur has been waiting for a response on the public security crisis for four months

The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, published on Monday, June 5, her request for information sent to Brazil in early February on the public security crisis in the state of Espírito Santo.

This type of UN procedure is usually confidential, but Brazil’s silence over the past four months prompted the rapporteur to release the document.

The request for information by Callamard was a response to an urgent appeal made by Conectas Human Rights and the Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Vitória in January, during the peak of the instability caused by the military police strike in Espírito Santo. Urgent appeals are communications that allow individuals and institutions to denounce human rights violations in their countries to the UN.

In their appeal, the organizations denounced the “lack of competence of the local government to provide basic public security services and guarantee the bodily integrity and life of the state’s population”.

In the UN document published this week, Callamard reinforces this concern. “Grave concern is expressed about the deadlock in salary negotiations between government and military police officers in the state of Espírito Santo, which has led to a vacuum of policing services and subsequently to a situation of generalized violence and 101 deaths in less than six days,” said the rapporteur in the document.

She also expressed “further concern at reports of rampant gang and death squad activity in the streets” without adequate state responses to guarantee the protection of the population, and she urged the government to take effective measures to investigate, prosecute and sanction those responsible for human rights violations during the crisis.

• Click here to read the full document sent by the UN to Brazil.
• Click here to read the urgent appeal submitted by the organizations in January.

The rapporteur’s document also contains six specific requests for information. None of them have been answered by Brazil. According to Conectas, the publication of the information request demonstrates a lack of commitment to the international human rights protection system.

“Brazil’s negligence in this case emphasizes the country’s negative track record with special rapporteurs. The country has the terrible habit of not responding to official requests for information and the publication of the document exposes this disregard for the Human Rights Council, on which Brazil has been serving as a member since the beginning of 2017,” said Camila Asano, coordinator of the Foreign Policy program at Conectas.