Weekly Report - 30 May 2013 (WR-13-21)

On 24 May Justice Minister José Eduardo Cardozo stated that the government led by President Dilma Rousseff had “no plan” to repeal the 1979 Amnesty Law. Cardozo was responding to a recommendation by the new Truth Commission, which began its work a year ago, that the government should take measures to allow for suspected perpetrators to be brought to justice. Brazil is also under pressure from international rights groups to respond to the commission’s unearthing of the officially commissioned Figueiredo report, dating back to 1967 and long thought lost, which detailed horrific crimes against Brazil’s indigenous population by landowners and the government’s own Indian Protection Service (SPI).