The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, criticized Brazil's resistance to dealing with its past and the way that state information is being handled, O Estado de S. Paulo reports.
According to the United Nations, Brazil will be violating its international obligations if it fails to provide access to files from the dictatorship to victims tortured under the military regime, Isto É magazine says. The UN also expressed unhappiness with the government's lack of transparency and said it will send an official statement to the authorities to "reconsider" their positions on amnesty for past crimes and the closure of archives.
For Pillay, the authorities are helping "to bury evidence." The Commissioner's statements come to the public at a time when Brazil is debating a bill on access to public information, currently pending in the Senate. A vote on the proposal has been delayed repeatedly due to lack of agreement between the government and allies such as former presidents Fernando Collor and José Sarney.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
