{"id":3688,"date":"2014-03-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.conectas.org.inf.br\/wp\/noticias\/the-back-of-beyond\/"},"modified":"2017-12-09T18:26:34","modified_gmt":"2017-12-09T18:26:34","slug":"the-back-of-beyond","status":"publish","type":"noticia","link":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/the-back-of-beyond\/","title":"The back of beyond","content":"

\"\"Drive a car with tinted windows, never walk alone, avoid using the telephone, don\u2019t stay out at night and when traveling always be wary of an ambush. These daily concerns of the young lawyer Igor Almeida sound like the kind of advice you\u2019d give someone going to the beach in Rio de Janeiro or to the cinema in downtown S\u00e3o Paulo. But for the 29-year-old activist and member of the Maranh\u00e3o State Society of Human Rights<\/u><\/a> (SMDH), the risk is part and parcel of a job that involves making sure the most vulnerable people in society have the right to life and their fundamental rights.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maranh\u00e3o made it onto the front pages of the national newspapers at the beginning of this year, after more than 60 people were killed in the Pedrinhas prison<\/u><\/a>, in the state capital of S\u00e3o Luiz. Igor visited the facility on two occasions to talk to the prisoners. A video of decapitated bodies in Pedrinhas captured the media\u2019s attention, senators visited the state, international complaints were filed, but little by little the interest waned and the case disappeared from the news. For local activists, however, public exposure is just one part of the job.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2010, we had 18 similar killings in a prison riot. The story got exposure, but nobody talked about the root causes. This is why new tragedies like this one, in 2013, keep on happening,\u201d said Igor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The lawyer said that it is harder to defend human rights outside large urban centers. \u201cMaranh\u00e3o is a peripheral state. Political matters make things even more difficult here. When newspapers from the southeast give visibility to the violations occurring in the state, it helps show that the story is in the spotlight, but the work remains here,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rural <\/strong>Maranh\u00e3o<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Despite all the attention given to the prison problem in the state, the activist said that the most frequent challenges for the SMDH still lie in rural areas. \u201cMaranh\u00e3o leads the ranking of land conflicts compiled by the CPT<\/a> (Pastoral Land Commission). We work with numerous cases of land disputes and \u2018quilombola\u2019 land rights issues,\u201d said Igor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Despite the risks and difficulties, he said that working in defense of human rights is a worthwhile pursuit. \u201cI learned this early on. My family were all rural workers and I grew up seeing what life was like for them. There was nothing else I wanted to do for a living. Anyone who works in this area understands the value of this dedication. The chance to look someone in the eye and see their gratitude makes everything worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Conectas has been working in close cooperation with the SMDH to pressure the government to make the necessary improvements to the prison system. Together, the organizations have filed international complaints over the killings in Pedrinhas and they have been to Bras\u00edlia to request that federal authorities take over the investigation and prosecution of the crimes.<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div>","excerpt":"

What it\u2019s like to defend human rights in small-town Maranh\u00e3o<\/p>\n","author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"tema":[],"class_list":["post-3688","noticia","type-noticia","status-publish","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"links_para_referencia":null,"author":null,"subtitle-pt":null},"yoast":{"focuskw":"","title":"","metadesc":"","linkdex":"","metakeywords":"","meta-robots-noindex":"","meta-robots-nofollow":"","meta-robots-adv":"","canonical":"","redirect":"","opengraph-title":"","opengraph-description":"","opengraph-image":"","twitter-title":"","twitter-description":"","twitter-image":""},"featured_image":[],"terms":{"acoes_categorias":[],"acoes_tags":[],"category":[{"term_id":7,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":7,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1550,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/category\/news\/","relative_link":"category\/news\/","langs":{"en":"news","br":"noticia-conectas"}}],"post_tag":[]},"author_name":"Leonardo Medeiros","author_nicename":"leonardo-medeiros","protected":false,"langs":{"en":"the-back-of-beyond","br":"the-back-of-beyond"},"permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/the-back-of-beyond\/","relative_url":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/the-back-of-beyond\/","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/3688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/noticia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3688"},{"taxonomy":"tema","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tema?post=3688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}