E/CN.4/1993/26
page 17
and tortured by means of electric shocks on the hands, thorax, genitals,
lower limbs and ears. Mrs. Gutiérrez was forced to remain for hours in the
so-called swine position and repeatedly kicked and beaten on the buttocks,
abdomen and lower limbs;
(b)
Victor Ortíz and Macario Tola, prisoners in the Chonchocoro jail,
were arrested in April 1992 and tortured by means of blows and electric
shocks. Macario Tola was made to wear an earphone and listen to unbearably
high pitched sounds.
Brazil
Information transmitted to the Government and replies received thereon
53.
In a letter of 7 September 1992 the Special Rapporteur notified the
Government that he had received information on the practice of torture
in Brazil. According to the information, street children in Cuiabá,
Matto Grosso, are regularly beaten and maltreated by the police to make them
hand over part of the proceeds of their thefts. Children with nothing to hand
over or refusing to do so are taken to the police station and beaten, often
with the fist wrapped in a cloth so as not to leave marks. Children are often
taken in the trunk of a car to a place on the bank of the Cuiabá river called
man-eater by the police. There the children are tied to a post and held in
the river until they are nearly drowned. Children are told that they will be
killed if they report the maltreatment.
54.
A report was received on the case of Mauro Martins Solano, age 17,
who is alleged to have died after torture by the police who arrested him
on 22 September 1991 near his home in Cuiabá. He was accused of stealing
electrical appliances and taken to the Santa Isabel police station and
tortured for several hours. According to his wife, who was also held by the
police, the torture included beating and immersion of the head in water until
the victim was on the point of suffocation. The police took Martins' body
to the hospital where they reported that he had suffered a heart attack.
The death certificate records the cause of death as suffocation caused by
immersion in water and the medical report states that the lungs contained
nearly a litre of water.
55.
On 25 November 1992 the Government reported, with respect to this case,
that the Centro de Defesa dos Direitos da Pessoa Humana had requested from
the Mato Grosso State Attorney-General clarifications regarding measures
undertaken by his office to investigate the case and punish those responsible.
In reply, the State Attorney-General reported that a police investigation had
been opened on the episode and that the criminal proceeding had been submitted
to the criminal civil justice prosecutor.
56.
The Special Rapporteur also transmitted information to the Government
regarding Carlos Aparecido Ladislau, Antonio Pinheiro Azevedo, Laurentina
Aperecido dos Santos, Gilson Alves da Cruz, Milton Luz, Elizeu de Jesus,
Marcio Bozoli, Macionil Fernandez do Prado, Fermino Lopes, Valdecir de Almeida
and Jorge Rosa de Sousa all members of the landless rural workers' movement.
According to the complaints lodged, they were arrested by the military police
on 27 July 1991 at Taquaralzinho in Anasatacio, Matto Grosso do Sul, and taken
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