From 1964 to 1985, Brazil experienced the longest military dictatorship in Latin American history. Early in this period, a “purge” of political opposition was driven by the regime’s oppressive measures. Accounts of human rights abuses were many, ranging from arbitrary arrests of opposing politicians and scholars to torture and political assassinations.
The newly established Inter-American Commission on Human Rights received many of these denunciations. In this project, the Brazil Initiative at Brown University, in collaboration with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, aims to document the cases of human rights abused and elucidate the mechanisms by which the IACHR opposed the regime.
The project makes available the documentation and correspondence between the case rapporteurs, the Brazilian Government and the claimants of cases of human rights violations. The project also documents the resolutions and discussions of each session of the Commission during this timeline.
With this, the Brazil Initiative and the IACHR aim to instigate scholarship about these interactions and stimulate the understanding of international human rights activism in times of oppression.