For an end to the oppressive search
Every week, thousands of mothers, daughters, sisters and wives of prisoners are forced to strip naked, squat three times over a mirror, contract their muscles and open their anus and vagina with their fingers so employees of the State can perform one of the most humiliating procedures ever conducted in Brazilian prisons: the oppressive search. Infants, elderly women and women with reduced mobility are all submitted indiscriminately to the same procedure, often while receiving insults and threats.
The oppressive search is considered “mistreatment” by the United Nations and, depending on the circumstances, may constitute torture. Although it is expressly banned in many countries and the State of Argentina was condemned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the OAS (Organization of American States) in 1996 for this very reason, Brazil continues to perform the oppressive search.
In order to put a stop to this brutality, the Criminal Justice Network, of which Conectas is part, has launched a national campaign to approve Bill No. 480/2013. After hearing dramatizations that reproduce the environment of these searches and seeing videos recorded by celebrities in support of the bill, it will be possible to send a standard message to the president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, asking for the bill to be urgently put to the vote.
Join the campaing in www.fimdarevistavexatoria.org.br.
Officially, the oppressive searches are performed to prevent drugs, weapons and mobile phone chips from entering prisons. But a survey conducted by the Criminal Justice Network discovered that this justification is groundless. Based on official documents supplied by the São Paulo State Prison Administration Department itself, it was found that only 0.03% of visitors were carrying contraband, i.e. 2 out of every 10,000 visitors. There were no cases of attempts to smuggle in weapons. The research used data gathered by the government in the months of February, March and April in the years 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Meanwhile, the seizure of illegal items from inside the cells was four times higher than the amount seized from visitors, which proves that the contraband enters the prisons through other means, other than visiting relatives.
In May 2013, the Prison Sentence Enforcement Court of Joinville banned the oppressive searches from prisons in the state of Santa Catarina. The judge who made the ruling, João Marcos Buch, explained that for the five months the ban was in place, there was no increase in the number of seizures that could be related to the end of this humiliating practice, much less any prison riots. On the contrary, he said, the system “started to function more smoothly. Even the guards realized that the security dynamic did not change and that their workload was eased.” In spite of this, the ruling was overturned by the State Court of Appeal, at the request of the State Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Testimonies
“We strip naked and the torture session begins: ‘squat down, push, it’s closed, push, cough, squat down again, open it with your hand, I can’t see’ (…) ‘against the wall, lie down, open your legs wider and push like you’re having a baby’. (…) It’s not enough for the employees, so they call others to search me and the whole ordeal starts over again: ‘Go on, put your hand down there and take the drugs out, because I know you’ve got some’. My response is: ‘I’m tired waiting here at the prison gates since yesterday, I just want to see my relatives, I don’t have any drugs inside me’,” reads one of the many accounts of the female visitors gathered by the Criminal Justice Network.
“After completing the procedure, the employee took my ticket, asked me to get dressed and took me to the bathroom of the detention center, put me up against the wall and made me push for 20 minutes. I opened it up, applied toilet paper, coughed. In tears, I begged and told them that I had nothing at all. Even then, the interrogation didn’t end,” said another female relative.
What the oppressive search involves
Stripping women and forcing them to squat three times over a mirror, contract their muscles and open their anus and vagina with their fingers so employees of the State can inspect the genital orifices of the mothers, sisters, wives and daughters of prisoners, of all ages, including infants, who visit their relatives in Brazilian prisons. The same thing happens, on a smaller scale, to men.
Why it should be banned
It is considered “mistreatment” by the UN and, depending on the circumstances, may constitute torture. It is expressly banned in many countries and the State of Argentina has already been condemned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the OAS (Organization of American States), in 1996, for this very reason.
The proof
Official documents from the São Paulo State Prison Administration Department, obtained via the Freedom of Information Law, reveal that only 0.03% of visitors were carrying contraband, i.e. 2 out of every 10,000 visitors. There were no cases of attempts to smuggle in weapons. The research used data gathered by the government in the months of February, March and April in the years 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Meanwhile, the seizure of illegal items from inside the cells was four times higher than the amount seized from visitors, which proves that the contraband enters the prisons through other means, other than visiting relatives.
What to do
Raise public awareness and pressure Congress to approve Bill No. 480/2013.
