Brazil is a constitutional federal republic with a population of approximately million. While civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces, members of the security forces committed numerous serious human rights abuses, primarily at the state level.
The federal government generally respected the human rights of its citizens; however, there continued to be numerous, serious abuses, and the record of several state governments was poor. The following human rights problems were reported:. The government or its agents did not commit politically motivated killings, but unlawful killings by state police military and civil were widespread. There continued to be a high rate of police killings. Government officials including the president acknowledged the continued severity of the problem of unlawful killings by law enforcement officials.
The Sao Paulo State Secretariat for Public Security reported that Sao Paulo police civil and military killed civilians in the first 9 months of the year compared with civilians killed during the first 8 months of ; off-duty policemen were responsible for 23 of the killings.
On December 4, in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro State, military police killed five people in the "Morro do Estado" shantytown; an investigation continued at year's end. Rio de Janeiro's Security Secretariat reported that state police killed persons during the first 8 months of the year, compared with killings for all of However, reports from the Center for Studies of Security and Censorship at Candido Mendes University estimated that approximately three thousand people were killed by police in Rio de Janeiro State during the year.
In many cases police officers employed indiscriminate lethal force during apprehensions, killing civilians despite the lack of any danger to themselves. In some of these cases, the civilian's death followed severe harassment and even torture by law enforcement officials see section 1.
