Cancellier did not commit suicide; he was suicided.

Just as Zé do Burro from "O Pagador de Promessas" entered, carried on a cross, dead, into the church where he had been prevented from entering alive by the Church, Rector Luiz Carlos Cancellier entered this Tuesday, the 3rd, inside a coffin at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, where he had been prohibited from entering alive by the Justice system.

Amidst applause for him and protests against those who provoked his suicide.

Cancellier did not commit suicide; he was made to commit suicide.

Arrested prematurely by Federal Police agents on September 14th, before even being heard regarding unfounded accusations made against him, he spent 30 hours incarcerated in a cell "with the worst criminals in Santa Catarina," according to a friend, in a humiliating situation – "we were stripped of our clothes," he wrote in a heartfelt article published in "O Globo," days before his death.

This is the treatment that the prison system gives to a university rector in Brazil.

It was "only" 30 hours in prison - for those on the outside; but for those inside, it feels like an interminable 108.000 seconds during which no one can imagine what might happen, given that the conditions in Brazilian prisons are medieval.

No prisoner has any guarantee of life or physical integrity, not even someone with a university degree, like Cancellier.

Now free, he was forbidden from returning to the institution where he was beloved, graduated, and built his career, without being given the right to defend himself.

His "suicide" is as much in quotation marks as the one attributed to Vlado Herzog in 1975, who was actually murdered in the dungeons of the military dictatorship.

This crime cannot go unpunished.