Student protest against the military dictatorship in 1968. Photo credit: National Archives/Public Domain

In the year that Brazil marks the 40th anniversary of the end of the military dictatorship (1964–1985), and with the debate surrounding this period revived by the success of the film ”Ainda estou aqui” (I’m Still Here, 2024), another issue remains latent in the country: the Brazilian state's debt to the victims of human rights violations committed by the regime.

Even with the implementation of reparations mechanisms, such as the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, the Amnesty Commission, and the creation of the National Truth Commission, the country still faces challenges in achieving transitional justice.

Furthermore, in the context of political polarization and the rise of far-right figures, a survey released by the Datafolha Institute in December 2024 indicated that 69 percent of the Brazilian population says they prefer democracy. Two years ago, the percentage was 79 percent.

In a 2012 article analyzing the Brazilian case, Fabiana Godinho MacArthur highlighted ”mechanisms and strategies” that enabled advancements in the country but pointed out a significant obstacle:

…pesa, sobre o processo transicional brasileiro, a preservação da opção pela não responsabilização individual dos agentes da repressão militar, bem como a negação de quaisquer responsabilidades por parte dos mesmos.

…The Brazilian transitional process is burdened by the preservation of the choice to refrain from holding individual agents of the military repression accountable, as well as the denial of any responsibilities on their part..

Impunity in the Brazilian case was strongly influenced by the 1979 Amnesty Law, which freed political prisoners and allowed exiles to return, while at the same time benefiting state agents involved in grave human rights violations, preventing them from being tried. The report of the National Truth Commission listed 377 people who would be responsible for crimes committed in that period.

In an interview with the Brasil de Fato website, Carla Osmo, a professor at the Law School of the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), recalls that Brazil took years to adopt any measures that guaranteed memory, truth, and justice, leading families of the dead and disappeared to seek answers on their own. She further notes:

No que diz respeito à responsabilização criminal, diferente do que aconteceu em outros países da América Latina, em que o Judiciário passou a observar a normativa internacional de direitos humanos admitindo os processos contra agentes do Estado por violações graves de direitos humanos, no Brasil essas ações seguiram sendo bloqueadas. O Ministério Público Federal, principalmente a partir da condenação do Estado brasileiro no caso Gomes Lund, em 2010, começou a promover uma série de ações de natureza criminal, que hoje já são dezenas. Mas elas, em regra, não são aceitas pelo Judiciário, que segue invocando a Lei de Anistia, contrariando o direito internacional dos direitos humanos.

Concerning criminal accountability, unlike what happened in other Latin American countries where the Judiciary began to observe international human rights norms by admitting processes against state agents for grave human rights violations, in Brazil these actions continued to be blocked. The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, mainly after the conviction of the Brazilian state in the Gomes Lund case in 2010, began to promote a series of criminal actions, which now number in the dozens. But as a rule, they are not accepted by the Judiciary, which continues to invoke the Amnesty Law, in contradiction with international human rights law.

The Gomes Lund case she mentioned refers to the trial against the Brazilian state before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) for violations in the context of the Araguaia Guerrilla War. Between 1972 and 1975, the guerrilla movement of PCdoB militants (Communist Party of Brazil) was repressed by the regime, resulting in deaths and forced disappearances.

The pursuit of truth

The judgment requested, among other points, that the country seek the truth about the disappeared, fully compensate the victims, and implement institutional reforms to prevent the repetition of such gross violations, in addition to publicly and unequivocally acknowledging the state's responsibility.

The Brazilian military dictatorship, which lasted more than 20 years, was a period marked by censorship, political persecution, arbitrary arrests, torture, and forced disappearances, used as instruments to silence opponents and control society.

The regime also practised other grave abuses, including sexual violence against women, persecution of the Black population and Indigenous peoples, and the suppression of social and cultural movements.

Institutional Act Number 5 (AI-5), decreed in 1968, marked the height of repression. With it, torture became an institutionalized practice — survivors’ accounts tell of the use of methods such as electric shocks, the “pau-de-arara” (a wooden torture device), and drowning. Most of the torturers were not prosecuted.

In 2019, after comments made by then-President Jair Bolsonaro (PL, Liberal Party), victims and family members also submitted a request to the IACHR for the international body to challenge the Brazilian state to respect the memory and rights of the victims. In 2023, the commission also expressed concern about the closure of the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, a decision at the end of the Bolsonaro government. It was only resumed in August 2024 under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT, Workers’ Party).

When he was still a federal deputy, Bolsonaro was known for positions in defense of the military dictatorship and for honoring repressors. He even had a poster on the door of his office mocking the search for the disappearance of members of the Araguaia guerrilla movement, with the message ”who seeks bones is a dog.”

Four decades later

With the reopening of political life in 1985, it was human rights associations and families of the dead and disappeared who gave visibility to the crimes of the dictatorship and the search for answers. The report “Brazil: Never Again“, which compiled data on torture and violations that occurred during that period, was published in July of the same year.

The work of these groups was fundamental in bringing the Brazilian state to international courts, as in the process that resulted in the conviction by the IACHR for the Araguaia Guerrilla War. The creation of the National Truth Commission was a consequence of this process. The NTC held public hearings and gathered testimonies about human rights violations that took place between 1946 and 1985 — the period between the two most recent Brazilian democratic constitutions, as explained on the commission's website.

The final report, published in 2014, made 29 recommendations to national authorities, including the accountability of perpetrators of violations, the need to implement policies of reparation and memory, and the review of the 1979 Amnesty Law.

At the time, the work of the NTC was the target of criticism from sectors linked to the military. Months before the conclusion of the report, for instance, in response to a request from the commission, the armed forces even denied that there had been any diversion of purpose in the facilities of the army, navy, and air force used for the practice of torture under the regime.

Speaking to Brasil de Fato, Professor Carla Osmo continued to argue that the violations that occurred during that period require an answer not only for the victims but also for society. She affirms:

Caso não se promova o conhecimento do que foi a ditadura militar, quem e como foi atingido, isso dá espaço inclusive para a difusão da visão absurda de que a ditadura militar teria sido algo positivo, e de que a repressão que praticou teria sido legítima.

If we do not promote knowledge of what the military dictatorship was, who and how they were affected, this gives space even for the dissemination of the absurd view that the military dictatorship would have been something positive and that the repression it practiced would have been legitimate.

‘Unnatural, violent death caused by the state’

In January 2025, nearly four decades after the end of a 21-year military dictatorship, registry offices across Brazil began issuing death certificates that accurately reflected the cause of death for victims of repression, eliminating the need for judicial action.

The action complies with a regulation of the National Council of Justice (CNJ). In the cause of death, it now states “unnatural, violent death, caused by the State to a disappeared person in the context of the systematic persecution of the population identified as political dissidents in the dictatorial regime established in 1964″.

In a report by Jornal Nacional, on TV Globo, the former political prisoners Crimeia Almeida and Amélia Teles accompanied the rectification of the death certificate of their friend Carlos Nicolau Danielli, a militant of the Brazilian Communist Party, whose death under torture was witnessed by them. Teles declared at the time: