People who did not turn up for the “biometric relisting,” which ocurred in several Brazilian cities, summoning about 14 million voters, will lose their voter registration cards, their ability to enroll in public education institutions, to benefit from welfare programs or to apply for public jobs. They will not even be able to do such…

Last Friday (04/11), a piece of land property in Rio’s suburbia was reinstated to telecom giant Oi. The area was known as “favela da Telerj” and had been occupied by 5,000 people, mostly from Mandela, Manguinhos, and Jacarezinho favelas, who built improvised homes there. There were serious confrontations with the Military Police in the enforcement…

Il 25 marzo la Commissione Nazionale per la Verità (Comissão Nacional da Verdade) ha sentito un colonnello in pensione per cercare di capire come “venivano torturati i prigionieri politici” e identificare “chi era vivo al momento dell’arrivo, chi morì, chi scomparve, e chi furono i torturatori” della Casa da Morte (Casa della Morte), un punto…

La cosiddetta Pietra Miliare Civile di Internet, approvata dalla camera dei deputati brasiliana il 25 marzo, si avvia al senato. L’aspetto più seducente del progetto di legge è “neutralità della rete”, uno strumento legale che impedisce ai fornitori di accesso di internet di offrire diversi piani di accesso. Ad esempio, un piano economico per accedere…

A retired colonel was heard on March 25th by Brazil’s National Truth Commission (Comissão Nacional da Verdade) to clarify how “political prisoners were tortured” and identify “who was alive when they arrived, who died and who is still missing, as well as the torturers” from Casa da Morte (“Death House”), an underground center for repression located…

The so-called Civil Landmark for the Internet, approved by Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies on March 25, now proceeds to the Senate. One of the main selling points of the bill is “net neutrality,” a legal device to prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from offering various Internet access plans — for instance, a cheaper price for just…

Many people in Brazil are still rather sympathetic to the military dictatorship that ruled the country until the 1980s. It isn’t uncommon to hear from older people that, back then, jobs were plenty, public education was decent, and violence was not out of control — that the country was in order. Sure it was. But…

Il sedici marzo scorso, Claudia Silva Ferreira ha commesso questo crimine: viveva nel posto sbagliato con il colore della pelle sbagliato. È uscita a comprare pane e prosciutto con una tazza di caffè in una mano. Non sai mai quanto può essere letale una tazza di caffè se tenuta da una donna nera e povera,…

Claudia Silva Ferreira’s crime, last March 16, was living in the wrong place and having the wrong skin color. She went out to buy bread and ham, a cup of coffee in hand. We can never know how lethal a cup of coffee might be if held by a black, poor woman living on the…

On Thursday, March 13, in interrogating Juliano Torres, executive-director of the Brazilian chapter of Students For Liberty (Estudantes Pela Liberdade – EPL), the Brazilian Federal Police (Polícia Federal) made sure they had all his travel records at hand to make their intimidation tactics appear even punchier. The Federal Police has been summoning for questions (or,…

One of Brazil’s largest newspapers, O Estado de S. Paulo, recently published a few articles on the 50th anniversary of the military takeover of the Brazilian government. One of them, written by an Army general (“A árvore boa,” by Rômulo Bini Pereira) has had some repercussion due to its positive and rose-tinted appraisal of the so…

Brazil is in a state of revolt. Demonstrations have been taking place all across South America’s largest country in over 350 Brazilian cities. Demonstrations against political corruption, poor education, poor healthcare, police violence, public transit costs and more are taking place on the streets. The public demonstrations are so large in scale that the nations political ruling…