Oppression of MST and Social Movements

Position of MST on the Legal Proceedings in the Supreme Court and the Political Prisoners

Dear Comrades José Dirceu and José Genoíno,

The National Directorate of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) has been following with indignation the Judgment of Exception and unjust conviction.

We vehemently repudiate the action of the Brazilian judiciary, especially the Supreme Court (STF), servant to the ruling class in thecountry, which for years has been acting against the working class, social movements and political struggle.

The plantation owner who ordered the murder of Dorothy Stang is sentenced to 30 years in prison

The Pará court condemned, at the end of the night this Thursday (September 19, 2013), the plantation owner Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura,Bida and Dorothy Stang “Bida,” to 30 years in prison, initially without being able to leave prison*, for the death of Sister Dorothy Stang, as a coauthor and instigator of the crime. The trial, the fourth conducted after a new set of lawyers, lasted more than 14 hours. The verdict was read by Judge Raimundo Moisés Alves Flexa.

Dorothy Stang was shot dead in Anapu in southwestern Pará, on February 12, 2005. According to prosecutors, she was murdered because she defended the deployment of rural settlements for workers on public lands that were contested by ranchers and loggers in the region.

The Left Joins in São Paulo to Decide how to Act in Demonstrations Across the Country

This Friday (06/26/13), 76 left organizations representing social movements, trade unions and political parties gathered at the chemicals union in brazil demosSão Paulo to evaluate the mobilizations scenario in Brazil and how to create a unity among themselves to act in these demonstrations.

The assessment made by organizations is that the demonstrations, which began around reducing the rate of public transport in the city, has a progressive character, as it seeks the expansion of various social rights for the youth and the working class, outraged by the situation in which they have lived for years.

Trial of confessed defendant of the Massacre of Felisburgo scheduled in May

chafikBy Joana Tavares
Portal Minas Free

It was in November of 2004. Armed gunmen invaded the Promised Land Camp (Terra Prometida), in Felisburgo, in Jequitinhonha Valley, and killed five workers. Another twenty were seriously injured, and huts and crops burned. Nearly nine years later, accused of being the mastermind of the crime, Adriano Chafik, who publicly confessed to be present on the day of slaughter, will face his first jury. The trial, originally scheduled for January this year, has finally been re-scheduled for May 15 in Belo Horizonte.

Landless demand justice during the funeral for MST leader in Bahia

funeralMST leader  Fábio Santos da Silva, assassinated on April 2 by 15 shots fired by gunmen in Iguaí, in the Southwest of Bahia, was buried on April 3.

The vigil for the body began in the Rural Community of Ribeirão das Flores and afterwards the body was taken to the City Hall of Iguaí, where the city can follow and share this moment of mourning and show solidarity with the grief of the family, friends, and men and women comrades in mourning.

On leaving the City Hall, families, friends, and MST activists held a march to the end of the city to accompany the coffin. On the way, a lot of music and chanting showed the people’s anger.

Human Rights Secretary of PE Visits MST Encampment in Altinho

Demonstration Against Violence in PernambucoRepresentatives of the State Secretariat for Human Rights, the State Program for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and the Ombudsman of the Department of Social Defense visited, on Tuesday (July 3, 2012), the Gregório Bezerra encampment in the city of Altinho, rural Pernambuco (PE).

The visit had as its main objective to present the results of several investigations open to punish acts of violence.

The camp has been the scene of systematic violence by gunmen hired by landowners of the farm Serro Azul, owned by Luis Reis, since April last year. Since the beginning of this year, the landowner has become even more violent and verbal threats and intimidation came to blows.

On March 22, Reiss beat Eraldo Alves da Silva, known as Seu Antonio, a landless workers in the encampment, while he was kept under the barrel of a gun, accompanied by two gunmen.

 

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