Why Killings of Environmentalists and Indians Keep Increasing in Brazil: Almost Certain Impunity 0 views
A memorial in honor of Dorothy Stang, a U.S.-born nun killed 15 years ago. Crosses represent murdered and threatened rural workers. Image by Daniel Beltrá/Greenpeace.
1 Shares
When Jair Bolsonaro took office as president of Brazil at the start of 2019, he ushered in a climate of hostility toward rural activists Indigenous peoples, environmentalists, advocates for landless workers’ rights, and communities subsisting off the sustainable extraction of forest resources.
In that first year, 31 people were killed in the wave of rural violence that swept Brazil. They have first names, surnames and histories of defending their land. What they do not have is justice.
Zero convictions as impunity blocks justice for victims of Brazil’s rural violence
Throughout 2019, the first year of the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, 31 people were killed in a wave of rural violence that activists say was driven by the Brazilian government’s rhetoric.
Since then, there have been no convictions in any of the cases, and the police are still investigating 19 of the murders; the sole closed case was ruled a drowning, despite evidence of violence against the Indigenous victim.
Those killed in 2019 were mostly men who lived in Brazil’s Amazonian states, were affiliated with landless workers’ or Indigenous people’s movements, and who died defending their territories.