Brazil announces compensation for the victim of dictatorship Vladimir Herzog Human Rights News

The Brazilian government has announced an agreement to recognize its responsibility for the killing of Vladimir Herzog, the journalist and defector who was killed during the country’s dictatorship.

On Thursday, the government agreed to a responsibility statement and a compensation package for the Herzog family, which amounts to 3 million Brazilian Reese, or 544,800 dollars.

The settlement also confirmed the decision of a federal court earlier this year to grant Herzog’s widow, Claris Herzog, the payments retroactively for the pension that she had to receive after the death of her husband, amounted to about 6000 dollars per month.

In a statement recorded by the Associated Press News, Evo Herzog, Ibn Herzog, praised the government’s decision to accept responsibility.

“This apology is not just a symbol,” said Evo. “It is a work by the state that makes us believe that the current Brazilian state does not think like the Brazilian situation at the time.”

He added that the story of his family represents hundreds, if not thousands, from others who killed their loved ones during the dictatorship from 1964 to 1985.

He explained that the government recognizes that committing its violations was a decades -long battle.

“This was a struggle not only for the Herzog family, but for all families of murder and disappearance,” said Evo, who now runs a non -profit human rights organization whose name is Vladimir Herzog.

Vladimir Herzog was 38 years old at the time of his death in 1975, in the middle of the dictatorial period.

The Brazilian army overthrew the head of the left, Joao Golart, a decade ago and installed a government known for human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture of dissidents, students, politicians, indigenous people and anyone else is a threat.

Many went to exile. Some people were killed or simply disappeared without a trace. The number of deaths is estimated at about 500, although some experts put this number in 10,000 or higher.

Herzog was a prominent journalist, and at first, he also went to exile in the UK. But he returned to Brazil to serve as a news editor for a public television station, TV Cultura. In this role, on October 24, 1975, Herzog was summoned by the authorities to the army barracks.

There, military officials indicated that he would be asked to testify about his political links. Herzog voluntarily left to make his statement. But he is no longer home.

The army later claimed that the death of Herzog was suicide, and issued a picture of his corpse hanging from a rope.

But the rabbi, who later examined the body of Herzog, signs of torture. The funeral of Herzog, which was conducted with complete religious rituals, turned into a moment of account of the Brazilian dictatorship, and the image she was exposed to a symbol of her violations.

His son Evo was only nine years old at the time. Earlier this year, it is Talk to the island On the release of a movie entitled “I am still here the most prominent murder committed under the dictatorship: Robbins -Pava, a politician.

Like Herzog, Piva voluntarily left to give a certificate at the request of military officials and has never been alive again. His body was not found. It took decades until the Piva family obtained a death certificate that confessed to the army’s role in its death.

Evo praised the film, which I am still here to raise awareness about the injustice of the dictatorship. He also told Al -Jazeera that he hoped that the Brazilian government will recognize the harm he caused to his family and amend the amnesty law in 1979, which protects many military officials from confronting accountability.

“What are you waiting for? Every person connected to this period to die?” Herzog told journalist Eleonor Hughes. “Brazil has a policy of forgetfulness, and we have developed very little.”

On Thursday, Jorge Messias, Federal Legal Adviser to Brazil, framing the agreement with the Herzog family as a step forward.

He said: “Today, we are witnessing something unprecedented: the Brazilian state in an official honor for Vladimir Herzog.”

The coup was also compared in 1964 to the modern conditions of Brazilian policy. On January 8, 2023, thousands of supporters of extremist right -wing president, Geor Bolsonaro, stormed the government buildings in the capital of Brazil, after the 2022 elections witnessed their candidate’s defeat.

The current president, Left Leader Luise Lula da Silva, compared this incident to a coup. Polsonaro He witnessed this month In court on charges, he helped organize an attempt to cancel the election result.

“In the 2022 elections, we stood at a crossroads: either to reaffirm democracy or move towards the closure of the Brazilian state, with all the horrors that we lived for 21 years,” said Msaias, with the passage of the horrors of the dictatorship.