RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The household of a Brazilian journalist who was tortured and killed in the course of the nation’s navy dictatorship on Wednesday welcomed a courtroom choice to grant a month-to-month stipend to his widow — marking a gesture of reparation in a nation nonetheless haunted by that two-decade interval.
The federal courtroom in Brazil ’s capital Brasilia ordered the federal government to pay simply over 34,000 reais (some $6,000) monthly to Clarice Herzog, 83, for the remainder of her life. It is a part of a broader push that is underway for reconciliation with the nation’s previous.
Clarice’s lifelong combat for justice echoes that of Eunice Paiva, the spouse of leftist congressman Rubens Paiva, likewise killed by the navy regime. That story is advised within the film “I am Nonetheless Right here,” which is up for 3 Academy awards — together with Finest Image and Finest Actress — and has been a field workplace success.
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Final month, Brazilian notaries started issuing a whole bunch of corrected loss of life certificates for victims of the dictatorship, which state that the deaths weren’t pure however violent and attributable to the state, based on native media.
The Vladimir Herzog Institute and the Herzog household celebrated the choice, which they referred to as “an vital milestone” in an announcement.
Herzog was killed practically 50 years in the past on Oct. 25, 1975. As a result of plaintiff’s age and in poor health well being, the choice issued on Jan. 31 is efficient instantly.
On the day of his loss of life, Herzog voluntarily introduced himself to a navy barracks after being summoned. The navy tried to border his loss of life as a suicide and issued {a photograph} of him hanging by the neck from a rope; the gambit backfired, and the picture was remodeled into an iconic show of the regime’s brutality.
The celebrated journalist’s homicide and the debunked story of his suicide sparked what is taken into account one of many first mass protests focusing on the navy regime (1964-1985).
In 2018, the Inter-American Court docket of Human Rights issued a ruling condemning the Brazilian state for Herzog’s torture and homicide, and for the failure to analyze and maintain navy dictatorship brokers accountable.
That ruling ordered Brazil to pay financial compensation to Clarice Herzog. The ministry for human rights and citizenship famous in an announcement that she has already acquired 100,000 reais, an quantity that Rogerio Sottili, the chief director of the Vladimir Herzog Institute, referred to as “symbolic.”
“The instance that is still is that you are able to do something and nothing will occur to you,” Sottilli added.
In January, the Herzog household filed a request for the sufficient monetary compensation, Sottili mentioned.
Nonetheless, the choice to grant Herzog’s spouse a month-to-month fee “goes within the path of Brazil attempting to do what it has by no means completed, which is to confront the state’s previous violence,” mentioned Sottili in a telephone name from Sao Paulo.
The federal government can attraction. The ministry’s assertion didn’t say whether or not it intends to, however famous the beforehand paid quantity and that the federal government’s amnesty fee already issued a proper apology to Clarice for the persecution she suffered when preventing for justice.
Not like nations like Argentina and Chile, which established reality commissions and prosecuted former dictators and their henchmen, Brazil’s transition again to democracy was marked by a sweeping amnesty to navy officers.
