RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Human Rights Defenders in the Ranks of the Police

By Clarinha Glock Reprint | | Print |

Clarinha Glock and James Allen Paranayba

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 28 1999 (IPS) - Many officers are shedding the repressive image that has long surrounded Brazil’s police forces, and taking on a task that has been almost exclusively the domain of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), church groups and legal experts: the defence of human rights.

The new phenomenon is largely the result of courses offered by the non-governmental Centre of Advice for Citizen Education Programmes (CAPEC) with support from the global rights watchdog Amnesty International, in agreement with the National Secretariat on Human Rights under the Justice Ministry.

CAPEC’s courses target educators, lawyers, doctors, student and community leaders, the heads of NGOs – and especially police.

In 1996, the first year the agreement with the National Secretariat on Human Rights went into effect, 1,108 people took the courses offered by CAPEC. That number had grown to 5,729 by last year, reported Patricia Audi, coordinator of the National Human Rights Programme.

In Amapa, an Amazon jungle state in the extreme north of Brazil, 50 percent of all police officers have undergone the training, “including military, traffic and community-based police, as well as fire fighters,” said Audi.

But the courses, now implemented in eight of Brazil’s 26 states, actually have a much greater reach, as those who receive the training are prepared for educating others, said Ricardo Balestrelli, an attorney who headed the Brazilian branch of Amnesty International for four years and is now honorary chairman.

It is a new thing in the developing world “for so many police to take on the role of curbing violence and educating the population,” he stressed.

The phenomenon is growing fast. In the southern state of Parana, the Institute for Defence of Human Rights, an NGO associated with the project, has already trained thousands of people, said Balestrelli.

And in the southern state of Rio Grando do Sul, where CAPEC is based and where it began its work, an estimated 60 percent of the Civil Police have taken the courses.

In several state capitals, such as Macapa in the north and Aracaju in the northeast, violence in the toughest neighbourhoods has been significantly curtailed, mainly due to the new “interactive” mentality of police officers, who are now assigned to a specific community, said Balestrelli.

CAPEC has developed an effective “persuasive language,” which consists of stimulating police to “promote, and not just respect, human rights,” he explained.

The basic argument is that fully assuming the fight against human rights violations is more effective than taking a defensive stance of simply responding to denunciations of police organisations whose members have been implicated in cases of torture, murders and massacres.

After decades of reports of abuses and outrages, one of the big challenges faced by Brazil’s security forces today is the recuperation of credibility and building a positive public image.

Carlos Alberto Sperotto, head of human rights instruction at the Civil Police Academy of Rio Grande do Sul, acknowledged the difficulties in ushering human rights into the barracks and police stations.

A law passed in Rio Grande do Sul in 1986 made human rights instruction mandatory in the training of police officers in the state. Although resistance has not vanished, the advances are clearly visible. “Respect for citizens who go to police stations has improved 80 percent,” according to Sperotto.

The idea that human rights only serve to protect criminals was the biggest obstacle, and a source of great friction between activists and police, he pointed out.

The positive results have led authorities in Rio Grande do Sul to extend the human rights courses to the military police, through projects carried out in conjunction with other institutions.

CAPEC’s human rights courses are divided into three sections of several months each, alternated with periods in which the concepts are put into practice under the supervision of local NGOs – a total of 30 are involved countrywide – associated with the project.

Besides the results at a national level, the programme has also drawn international attention, and is serving as a model for similar projects being developed in Africa and Asia by the Dutch and Norwegian branches of Amnesty International, said Balestrelli.