Brazil announces compensation for dictatorship victim Vladimir Herzog

The authorities of Brazil has announced an statement to admit its work successful the execution of Vladimir Herzog, a writer and dissident who was killed during the country’s dictatorship period.

On Thursday, the authorities agreed to a connection of liability and a compensation bundle for Herzog’s family, amounting to 3 cardinal Brazilian reais, oregon $544,800.

The colony besides affirmed the determination of a national tribunal earlier this twelvemonth to assistance Herzog’s widow, Clarice Herzog, retroactive payments of a pension she should person received aft her husband’s death, amounting to astir $6,000 per month.

In a connection recorded by The Associated Press quality agency, Herzog’s son, Ivo Herzog, applauded the government’s determination to judge responsibility.

“This apology is not simply symbolic,” Ivo said. “It is an enactment by the authorities that makes america judge the existent Brazilian authorities doesn’t deliberation similar the Brazilian authorities of that time.”

He added that his family’s communicative represented hundreds, if not thousands, of others who had their loved ones killed during the dictatorship play from 1964 to 1985.

Having the authorities admit its wrongdoing, helium explained, has been a decades-long fight.

“This has been a conflict not lone of the Herzog family, but of each the families of the murdered and disappeared,” said Ivo, who present runs a quality rights nonprofit named for his father, the Vladimir Herzog Institute.

Vladimir Herzog was 38 years aged astatine the clip of his decease successful 1975, midway done the dictatorship period.

The Brazilian service had overthrown left-wing President Joao Goulart a decennary earlier and installed a authorities that became known for quality rights abuses, including the arbitrary apprehension and torture of dissidents, students, politicians, Indigenous radical and anyone other deemed to beryllium a threat.

Many went into exile. Some were killed oregon simply disappeared without a trace. The fig of deaths is estimated to beryllium astir 500, though immoderate experts spot that fig astatine 10,000 oregon higher.

Herzog was a salient journalist, and initially, helium excessively went into exile successful the United Kingdom. But helium returned to Brazil to service arsenic the quality exertion for a nationalist tv station, TV Cultura. It was successful that relation that, connected October 24, 1975, Herzog was summoned by authorities to an service barrack.

There, subject officials indicated helium would beryllium asked to attest astir his governmental connections. Herzog voluntarily near to connection his statement. But helium ne'er returned home.

The subject aboriginal claimed Herzog’s decease was a suicide, and it released a staged photograph of his assemblage hanging from a rope.

But a rabbi who aboriginal examined Herzog’s assemblage recovered signs of torture. Herzog’s funeral, conducted with afloat spiritual rites, turned into a infinitesimal of reckoning for the Brazilian dictatorship, and the staged photograph became a awesome of its abuses.

His lad Ivo was lone 9 years aged astatine the time. Earlier this year, helium spoke to Al Jazeera astir the merchandise of a movie called I’m Still Here that highlighted different execution committed nether the dictatorship: that of Rubens Paiva, a politician.

Like Herzog, Paiva voluntarily near to springiness grounds astatine the petition of subject officials and was ne'er seen live again. His assemblage was ne'er found. It took decades for Paiva’s household to person a decease certificate that acknowledged the military’s relation successful his death.

Ivo praised the movie I’m Still Here for raising consciousness astir the injustices of the dictatorship. He besides told Al Jazeera that helium hoped for the Brazilian authorities to admit the harm it had done to his household and to amend the 1979 Amnesty Law that shielded galore subject officials from facing accountability.

“What are they waiting for? For everyone connected to that play to die?” Herzog told writer Eleonore Hughes. “Brazil has a authorities of forgetfulness, and we person evolved very, precise little.”

On Thursday, Jorge Messias, Brazil’s national ineligible counsellor, framed the statement with the Herzog household arsenic a measurement forward.

“Today, we are witnessing thing unprecedented: The Brazilian authorities formally honouring the representation of Vladimir Herzog,” helium said.

He besides compared the 1964 coup d’etat with the modern circumstances of Brazilian politics. On January 8, 2023, thousands of supporters of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro stormed authorities buildings successful Brazil’s capital, aft the 2022 predetermination saw their campaigner defeated.

The existent president, left-wing person Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has compared that incidental to a coup. Bolsonaro testified this month successful tribunal implicit charges helium helped orchestrate an effort to overturn the predetermination result.

“In the 2022 election, we stood astatine a crossroads: Either to reaffirm ideology oregon determination toward the closure of the Brazilian state, with each the horrors we lived done for 21 years,” Messias said, referencing the horrors of the dictatorship.