Celebrating 64 years is incompatible with the rule of law, say former members of the National Truth Commission.

247 - In a text published in Folha de S.Paulo newspaperFormer members of the National Truth Commission (CNV), José Carlos Dias, Maria Rita Kehl, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, Pedro Dallari, and Rosa Cardoso, assert that the 1964 military coup "was a deliberate and illegal violation of constitutional rules, seizing control of the organs and political power."

"In the days following the coup, thousands of citizens were arrested, and brutality and torture were commonplace," they say. "A complex repressive system was perfected, permeating the administrative structures of public power and exercising permanent surveillance over unions, professional organizations, churches, and political parties."

According to them, "the systematic practice of illegal and arbitrary detentions and torture, enforced disappearances, executions and concealment of corpses that befell thousands of Brazilians constitutes the commission of crimes against humanity."

"For these reasons, exhaustively documented by the National Truth Commission, established by law and whose report is the official version of the Brazilian State regarding the military regime, the 1964 coup d'état and the regime it established are incompatible with the principles of the 1988 Constitution that govern the democratic rule of law today."

"Celebrating the 1964 coup means celebrating the serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity perpetrated as a result, which remain unpunished to this day, implying an intolerable apology for violence."