The state of Brazil was condemned by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights this Tuesday and held responsible for violating the family of a human rights defender’s rights to truth, protection and integrity. The lawsuit is a response to 40 years of immunity.
According to the sentence, investigations into the brutal death of Gabriel Sales Pimenta recorded a “serious bankruptcy” of the State and “a state of absolute impunity for the murder today”.
The Court in San José concluded that Brazil had “failed to comply with its obligation to act with enhanced due diligence in the murder investigation”. For experts, the punishment is historical as it relates to the murder of a human rights activist and the state’s role in protecting him.
Gabriel Sales Pimenta was 27 years old at the time of his death. He became a lawyer for the Maraba Rural Workers Union (“STR”) in 1980 and was a representative of the Pastoral Land Commission. As a lawyer, he acted to defend the rights of rural workers.
“On July 18, 1982, Gabriel Sales Pimenta, as a result of his work as a human rights defender, was shot three times and died instantly while leaving a bar with his friends in the city of Marabá, south of Pará”, pointed to the Court.
The identity of the three alleged perpetrators of the murder has been determined. “In August 1983, the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a criminal complaint against the individuals previously identified as the perpetrators of the qualified manslaughter crime decided by the incumbent judge. Another suspect for lack of evidence”.
A trial was scheduled for 2002 with a single defendant. However, the case never took place as the suspect’s location was not determined.
It was only in 2006 that the Federal Police managed to comply with the preventive detention order. However, on April 10, 2006, the defendant’s lawyers filed a habeas corpus with the Court of Justice of Pará to demand house arrest or an expiration of criminal liability due to statute of limitations. The Public Prosecutor’s Office also expressed that it is in favor of the statute of limitations decree met by the Convened Criminal Chambers of the Court of Justice of Pará.
new process
But the victim’s family did not give up. In 2007, Gabriel Sales Pimenta’s brother, Rafael Sales Pimenta, filed a complaint with the National Justice Council alleging delay in processing the case for exceeding the time in the sentencing process. However, your complaint has been shelved.
In the State of Pará, another attempt was made for moral damages resulting from the delay in the criminal process and the resulting impunity for the murder. But the appeal was denied.
For the Inter-American Court, therefore, states have an enhanced due diligence duty to investigate what happened.
“In analyzing the facts of the case, the Court of the Americas found that Brazil had serious bankruptcies reflecting an utter lack of diligence in prosecuting and punishing those responsible for the murder of Gabriel Sales Pimenta. “Despite other evidence presented,” he said.
Furthermore, the Court concluded that the case was part of the context of “structural impunity for threats, murders and other human rights violations against rural workers and their defenders in the State of Pará”.
According to the decision, the negligence of the judicial operators in the statute of limitations criminal proceedings was “the determining factor in the case’s being in a state of absolute impunity”.
Conviction and measures
In the light of these results, the Court has ordered several compensation measures:
(i) establishing a working group to identify the causes and conditions that create impunity and to develop lines of action to overcome them;
(ii) (publishing the official summary of the Decision in the Official Journal of the Union, in the Official Gazette of the State of Pará and in a newspaper with wide national circulation, and on the website of the entire Decision Federal Government, Public Ministry and Judicial Power of the State of Pará;
(iii) take a public action on the admission of international responsibility for the facts of the present case;
(iv) create a space of public memory in the city of Belo Horizonte where the activism of human rights defenders in Brazil, including Gabriel Sales Pimenta, is valued, protected and protected;
(v) establish and implement a protocol for the investigation of crimes against human rights defenders;
(vi) review and adapt existing mechanisms at the federal and state levels, in particular the Program for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, Communicators and Environmentalists; risks to human rights advocacy; and
(vii) It will pay the amounts determined in the decision as pecuniary and non-pecuniary compensation, costs and expenses.
Message of support for democracy
But according to the sentence, the message of the verdict and the case goes far beyond the victim’s family. In its decision, the court stressed that the work of human rights defenders is “fundamental for strengthening democracy and the rule of law”.
The document also touches upon the need to eliminate impunity for acts of violence against human rights defenders, as this is essential to ensuring that they can carry out their work freely in a safe environment.
In the Court’s assessment, violence against activists has “a frightening effect, especially when crimes go unpunished.”
In this connection, the resolution reiterated that threats and attacks on the integrity and life of human rights defenders, and impunity for those responsible for these facts, are “particularly serious because they have not only an individual but also a collective impact”. means that society is prevented from knowing the truth about the respect or violation of the rights of persons under the jurisdiction of a particular State.
“Historical” Decision
“The decision confirms the endorsement of many international organizations about the serious scenario of systematic violence against human rights,” said Helena Rocha, co-director of the Brazil and Southern Cone program at CEJIL, the organization that took the case to Court. “For this, it is essential to develop tools to combat the structural impunity of these cases and to promote effective public policies to protect them,” he said. .
José Batista, a lawyer for the CPT in Marabá, assessed the sentence “has historical weight and very high symbolic value for the peasants and their leaders fighting for the urgency and access to land in Brazil”.
For them, after more than 40 years of impunity, justice has begun to be served for Gabriel Pimenta. “However, there is still a long way to go, as the protection of human rights defenders can only be achieved by strengthening adequate public policies such as those ordered by the Court in this particular case. Gabriel Pimenta’s struggle is constant and all of us,” they say.
Gabriel’s brother, Rafael Pimenta, concluded that the conviction “marked a crucial turning point in the fight for the defense of human rights defenders”. “Gabriel was a human rights lawyer, a lawyer for landless workers and the underserved population of the Brazilian state. This is a victory for Gabriel, a victory for human rights, and a victory for the Brazilian people,” he added.
source: Noticias
