Abstract
Starting from a famous case of police violence occurred in Rio de Janeiro in 2013 (the imprisonment, torture, death and “disappearance” of a mason called Amarildo), this article questions the thesis, common among human rights activists, that the violations perpetrated by the Brazilian police is a “cursed legacy” of the military regime. Albeit not denying that the dictatorship strengthened such practices, this article explores the following question: if indeed illegal imprisonment, torture, death and even “disappearance” were invented by the military regime, how can we explain, more than thirty years after democratization, the persistence of such practices? This article argues that the use of such methods against the “underclasse” already existed before the regime, and persisted despite its end.
Keywords:
Amarildo; Torture; Military regime