Brazil is a constitutional federal republic with a population of approximately million. While civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the federal security forces, state-level security forces committed numerous human rights abuses.
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: unlawful killings, excessive force, beatings, abuse, and torture of detainees and inmates by police and prison security forces; inability to protect witnesses involved in criminal cases; harsh prison conditions; prolonged pretrial detention and inordinate delays of trials; reluctance to prosecute as well as inefficiency in prosecuting government officials for corruption; violence and discrimination against women; violence against children, including sexual abuse; trafficking in persons; discrimination against indigenous people and minorities; failure to enforce labor laws; widespread forced labor; and child labor in the informal sector.
In several cases human rights violators enjoyed impunity for crimes committed. The government or its agents did not commit politically motivated killings, but unlawful killings by state police military and civil were widespread. In many cases police officers employed indiscriminate lethal force during apprehensions, killing civilians despite the lack of any danger to themselves.
In some cases the deaths of civilians followed severe harassment or torture by law enforcement officials. Death squads with links to law enforcement officials carried out many killings, in some cases with police participation. The National Human Rights Secretariat reported that death squads operated in several states. Credible, locally based human rights groups reported the existence in several states of organized death squads linked to police forces that targeted suspected criminals and persons considered problematic or "undesirable" by land owners.
The Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission reported that during the year there were 25 killings related to conflicts due to land, water, and labor disputes, compared with 39 such killings in Amnesty International and other credible sources indicated that such killings often occurred with the participation, knowledge, or acquiescence of state law enforcement officials.
