Brazil: Increasing repression and criminalization against the Landless People Movement (MST)

Last June 17, about 300 landless (the vast majority of them women, children and elderly) were forcibly evicted from two camps of the “Movimento de Trabalhadores Sem Terra” (MST), located on leased and private land –therefore legally occupied-  in the vicinity of Fazenda Guerra, in Coqueiros do Sul, Northern region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The judiciary of Carazinho issued the eviction order after the Attorney General’s office of Rio Grande do Sul filed a complaint against MST on June 11. In this complaint, the Attorney General accuses MST of crimes against the national security and characterizes MST as a para-military organization which ought to be dismantled.

It is the first time since the end of the military dictatorship in Brazil that a systematic attempt to disarticulate and criminalize movements of social protest like MST is registered. The situation in the region is very tense. Please send letters to the President of Brazil asking him to take measures to investigate the case, to redress the families unduly evicted and to guarantee full enjoyment of the right to free association to MST. Please send copies of your letter to the Governeour of Rio Grande do Sul, to the Brazilian embassy in your country and to MST.