Center for Human Rights of Nova Iguaçu-RJ

To make the Brazilian State accountable for the massacres of the Baixada Fluminense; Access the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights, Encourage and expand the number of dennounces made by the population of Baixada Fluminense regarding violations in the field of Public Security; and build a support network for families who have been victimized by the state. The target audiences are the São Jorge community in Japeri; Chatuba in the city of Mesquita; Parque Paulista in Duque de Caxias; Éden in São João do Meriti and Rua Gama in Nova Iguaçu, as well as social movements and human rights organization of the Baixada Fluminense region.

• Construction and consolidation of a report on the slaughter that happened at Baixada Fluminense.
• Construction of the People’s Court of Baixada Fluminense.
• Increasing the size of the Institutional Legal Center.

Ten years after the Chacina da Baixada (Baixada Slaughter), violence in this region is increasingly intense, deep and complex. The municipalities suffered, in their own way, a reconfiguration of the forms of violence, directly associated with the reorganization of the criminal gangs. The Chacina da Baixada remains a landmark of a model of violence started in the region with the Esquadrões da Morte (Death Squads). Created in the beginning of the civil-military dictatorship of 1964, the Esquadrão da Morte has been operating from the articulation of three elements: the police apparatus; the financial means provided by economic groups; and the support of politicians who guarantee the group’s operations and use its services. Even with the worldwide repercussion of the Chacina da Baixada, crimes with this profile are still frequent and spread like cancer. Since 2005, at least three more serial killings have occurred in the region. In 2010, there was the Slaughter of Eden, in São João de Meriti; in 2012, the Chacina of Chatuba, in Mesquita; and in 2014, the Chacina of Parque Paulista, in Duque de Caxias. Together, the three massacres killed 29 people. The denounce have been made at local, state and national levels, from the Police Department to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, but to this day the Brazilian State has not been made accountable.

The Human Rights Center of Nova Iguaçu is a non-governmental organization that was created as a Peace and Justice Commission of the Catholic Church in 1978 to fight against the military dictatorship, on the initiative of Bishop Adriano Hipólito. It became a Human Rights Center in 1993. It advises and supports initiatives that contribute to the construction and realization of human rights in Brazil, in the state of Rio de Janeiro and more specifically in the Baixada Fluminense, an area formed by 13 municipalities with approximately four and a half million inhabitants.

- Grita Baixada Forum.
- Social Pastorals.
- Network of Communities and Movements against Violence.
- Mothers of Victims of Police Violence in the Baixada Fluminense Movement.
- Youth Forum of Rio de Janeiro.
- Black Youth Alive Campaign.