IACHR to visit Brazil in november

The committee is visiting eight states in order to observe human rights conditions in Brazil.

IACHR Commissioners to visit eight Brazilian states from 5 to 12 November.

The IACHR (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ) is visiting Brazil from 5 to 12 November. The Committee is to visit eight states in order to observe human rights conditions in the country. Meetings are also scheduled with civil society, social movements and academics.

The delegation will be led by the President of the IACHR, Margarette May Macaulay; the First Vice-President, Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño; the Second Vice-President, Luis Ernesto Vargas Silva; the Commissioners Francisco José Eguiguren Praeli, Joel Hernández García and Antonia Urrejola Noguera, Rapporteur for Brazil. The delegation also includes the Coordinator of the Rapporteur’s Office, Marisol Blanchard; Assistant Executive Secretary, María Claudia Pulido; Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Speech Edison Lanza; Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Soledad García Muñoz and specialists from the Executive Secretary.

The IACHR will carry out field observations on the human rights conditions in the country, covering the following interconnecting areas: discrimination, inequality, poverty, democratic institutionality and public policy on human rights. The Commission will pay particular attention to the conditions of people of African descent and quilombolas; indigenous communities and people; peasants and farm labourers; poor urban populations; human rights defenders; people deprived of freedom; migrants and others.

Of these areas, the IACHR will focus on groups that have a history of being subjected to discrimination, vulnerability and exclusion. In addition, the IACHR will gather information on the situation of both urban and rural public security, as well as on conflicts in the countryside and over land. The Inter-American Commission will also observe the situation of access to justice and the possibility of impunity in cases of serious human rights violations.

The delegation is to visit Brasília and the states of Bahia, Maranhão, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Pará, Rio de Janeiro, Roraima and São Paulo, where they plan to meet with government authorities at federal, state and local levels. They will also meet civil society organisations, social movements and academics. They will also be collecting testimonies from victims of human rights violations and their families in the different regions they visit. The IACHR will be holding meetings with agencies of the United Nations system and members of the diplomatic corps.