A big fan of the Vila Nova team, Murilo Soares Rodrigues loved soccer. Playing in the wing position, he received many trophies playing in the children’s league in Goiania. He was in the 7th grade and he never missed class. His dream was to be a professional player. On April 25th, 2005, tragedy struck. According to his mother, Maria das Gracas Soares, 36, her son was hanging out with a police suspect when he was nabbed and executed by 8 policemen. Maria’s life has never been the same since that day. The room where Murilo and his brother used to sleep has been left untouched: the brother has not been able to sleep in that room since the murder. "I myself am depressed. I can only sleep when I take pills," commented Maria, who is now separated from her husband and lives off welfare.

In Sao Paulo, 926 kilometers from Goiania, police violence is part of the day-to-day life of young people who live in the outlying areas of the city. According to Jonas Ribeiro Moraes, who lives in the southern part of the city, the young man has already be harassed by the police several times. "Here, they pick on the young folks, and we get beat a lot. The cops have name tags, but they don’t let you look at them. They tell you to turn away and keep your head down. It’s been worse for me. Once, I stole a car with three of my friends. The cops were coming, and my friends ran away. I stayed in the car and hid a gun under the car seat. Two police pointed their guns at me, opened the car, pulled me out of the car, and forced me on the ground. One police twisted my arm while the other began to kick me in the face. They wanted to know where the gun was, and where my friends went.

"Then they took me to a wooden shack and they began to beat me. I don’t like to remember it," said Jonas. Eight police officers participated in a torture session. While they were beating him, they asked him if he had money, if his family had money, or if he was owing the police some money. Forty minutes later, they stripped him to his underwear, and threw him in a nearby lake. They then hooked him up to a car battery and began to shock him for fifteen minutes. "I thought I was going to die and never see my mom and dad again," said Jonas.

Afterwards, the police took him back into the shack. They began to insert needles under his fingernails. One police held his arms, another his fingers, and a third stuck in the needles, using a hammer at times to sink the needles in deeper.

In total, Jonas was tortured for four hours. He was then brought to a police station. Jonas told the officer in charge what the arresting police had done to him. No action was taken against the officers. Jonas was placed in a youth detention center (Febem) for four months.

Because of Jonas’ case, and the cases of many other youths in the city, Cedeca (Defense Center for Children and Adolescents), has begun to initiate ways of combating this type of violence. The entity promoted a research project to investigate the trajectory of adolescents who have been charged with a crime, from the time of their arrest until their placement in the justice system. The research, entitled, "Public Security for Which Public?," contains interviews with the victims and the results of the research done with 116 adolescents, of both sexes, from 12 to 20 years of age. The study analyzes police violence and ways to defend oneself against arbitrary acts done by the police, precautions to take when being arrested, and which cases one should take to public organs.

According to Claudio Hortencio of Cedeca, one of the most astounding statistics in the report is that 96% of adolescents in the area have been confronted by the police, and 76% have been confronted 4 or more times.

The study, which also looks at the way police act when they confront the victims, reveals that 86% of the police do not identify themselves, which implies that police are possibly acting in a way that is not in conformity with official police procedures.

Ninety-four percent of the youth interview said that the suffered some type of police aggression, whether it be physical or psychological. And the Military Police are responsible for 70% of the cases of violence.

[Founded in 1999, Cedeca Interlagos accompanies youth who have been charged with infractions of the law, and who are released into half-way houses and must do community service. Because of the nature of this NGO, the workers of Cedeca receive threats from the police and threats from criminal factions.]

According to another study done by UNESCO, the victims of police violence are generally Afro-Brazilian, male, and live in the outlying areas of the city. The death rate among black youths as result of this violence is 74% greater than white youths.

Parents are beginning to organize. Maria das Gracas Soares plans to turn her son’s assassination into a fight for justice. With other parents, she created the Goiania Committee for an End to Police Violence. The group already has 16 families and have the support of other local groups working with youth. These are parents who had sons tortured, beaten or executed by the police, who raise the banner, "When pain becomes resistance." Their objective is to strengthen the movement to look for changes within the police force itself, besides denouncing and demanding justice in cases of victims who are considered "disappeared." They are proposing better monitoring of the 32 police cars which patrol the area, installing cameras on the cars. They are also demanding better preparation for police officers. Currently, 16 of the vehicles have already been equipped with cameras, and beginning last month, the police force has started refresher courses for current police officers.

The families also compiled a report concerning police violence in the city. The report will be presented to the United Nations later this year.

Source: .Revista Viração - www.revistaviracao.com.br

Nineteen years after the barbarian murder of Vicente Cañas Costa, a Jesuit missionary who lived with the Enawenê-Nawê people in the state of Mato Grosso, the man behind the murder and the two men who carried it out will stand trial. The trial is scheduled to begin on October 24 in Cuiabá, state of Mato Grosso, and it can set a remarkable example in the struggle to put an end to impunity in Brazil. The crime was committed because Cañas supported the demarcation of the Enawenê-Nawê land and worked to ensure the availability of health care services to these people.

Two other men who were also reportedly behind the crime have died already. The lawsuit against the third defendant expired because of his old age. Therefore, Ronaldo Antônio Osmar, a former chief of police in the city of Juína, where the crime was committed, Martinez Abadio da Silva and José Vicente da Silva will stand jury trial for aggravated homicide in exchange for money and in an ambush. The penalties for aggravated homicide can vary from twelve to thirty years in prison. Former chief of police Ronaldo will also be judged for aggravating circumstances, since it is believed that he promoted or organized a cooperation scheme for committing the crime, as he led the criminal activity of the other people involved in it.

Vicente Cañas lived with the Enawenê people for 10 years. He took part in the first contacts between the group and non-indigenous people in 1974. He accompanied them in their traditional fishing and agricultural activities and in other daily activities. In a region where verminosis was commonplace, he acted to prevent verminosis-related diseases. He organized immunization campaigns repeatedly to prevent infectious-contagious diseases such as measles, which decimated so many other indigenous groups in Brazil. The population of the Enawenê-Nawê amounted to 97 people when they were first contacted. Today, it amounts to 430 people.

He also fought for the demarcation of their traditional lands, which farmers who settled in the region coveted for, and was an official member of a Funai's working group set up to identify their indigenous territory. For this reason, the competence for judging the defendants was transferred to a federal court.

After receiving death threats because of his commitment to ensuring the survival of the Enawenê-Nawê people, Vicente Cañas was a victim of the ambition and violence of farmers, who stabbed him to death in 1987 as he was getting ready to visit an indigenous village to take medicines there. His murderers left him agonizing in pain in front of his tent and ran away through trails in the forest to the farm of one of the men who hired them to kill him. His body was found only about forty days later. The investigations lasted for six years and the fact that the defendants were involved was revealed by indigenous people belonging to the Rikbaktsa group (canoeiros), who live in lands close to those of the Enawenê-Nawê.

Cimi calls on all pastoral and social movements to spread the word about this trial and invites all people who want the defendants to be punished for their crimes to be present at the Auditorium of the Federal Court of Cuiabá at 8:00 a.m. on October 24 to show the importance of this trial to putting an end to impunity.

Brasília, October 11, 2006

Cimi Indianist Missionary Council

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