Rhetoric that rejects human rights, and particularly human rights organizations and activists, has been rapidly gaining traction in Brazil in the last few years.
Throughout 2016, during the controversial impeachment process of President Dilma Rousseff—a former political prisoner tortured during the dictatorship (1964-1985) and the first woman elected president of Brazil—, an anti-human rights discourse began rising more noticeably.
For example, when former Deputy Jair Bolsonaro cast his vote for Rousseff’s impeachment, he dedicated it to Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, who was directly responsible for Rousseff’s torture and the first official of the Brazilian army to be convicted for this practice.
