We live in an age in which most of the major human rights treaties – there are nine “core” treaties – have been ratified by the vast majority of countries. But the courts are slow and underfunded, so police, under pressure to combat crime, employ extrajudicial methods, such as torture, to extract confessions. These countries all have judicial systems, and most suspected criminals are formally charged and appear in court. Brazil is hardly the only country where this takes place others include India, the world’s largest democracy, South Africa, the Dominican Republic and Iran. The prohibition of extrajudicial killings is central to human rights law, and it is a rule that Brazil flagrantly violates – not as a matter of official policy, but as a matter of practice. But every year more than a thousand killings by police – very likely summary executions, according to Human Rights Watch – take place in Rio de Janeiro alone.
Normally, de Souza’s story would have ended there, but public pressure led to a police investigation, and eventually to the arrest of 10 police officers, who were charged with torturing and murdering him.īrazil, one of the largest democracies in the world, is rarely considered to be among the major human rights-violating countries.
De Souza’s disappearance was taken up by protesters in street demonstrations, which were met with a ruthless police response. In July 2013, Amarildo de Souza, a bricklayer living in a Rio de Janeiro favela, was arrested by police in an operation to round up drug traffickers.
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