#FreeTenharim: State Public Defender demands Tenharim to be set free

#FreeTenharim: State Public Defender demands Tenharim to be set free State. Public Defender points mistakes in investigations and demands Tenharim indigenous people to be set free.

The Public Defender of the Union (DPU) in Amazon demanded in Tuesday (03/11) a habeas corpus (release document) in Regional Federal Court of the 1st region in favor of the five native Brazilians of Tenharim ancestry accussed of manslaughter of three men by the end of 2013 in the Indigenous land of Tenharim Marmelos in Humaitá (Amazon). Besides the request of the annulment of the temporary jailing or substituting it by going to the “semi-liberty” regime in the Native National Foundation (FUNAI) the defense points mistakes in the investigation conducted by Federal Police Force therefore DPU assumed the defense of the accused in February.

According to DPU in Amazon – which released some parts of the release document (habeas corpus) – the police authority just based mostly in anonymous testimonies to finish the investigation which violates the International pacts of Human Rights of which Brazil is part and therefore the proof is invalid. Those people are free of the crime of “false testimony” and cannot even be contradict by the defense which denies the accused of the constitutional right of the contradictory to wide defense in the legal process. DPU asks for the exclusion of the documents containing the testimonies of such witnesses.

For DPU the investigation conducted so far is a failed attempt of two months work in a village where live 2 thousand indigenous Tenharim: “It were picked two natives – now seven with the indictment of another but who are still in freedom – by ‘anonymous witnesses’. Natives that were released just for the local community to feel justice – or revenge…”.

Ethnical prejudice

In the justice decision that determined the temporary jailing of the accused the federal public defenders in Amazon identified the discourse that says that the prison of the Tenharim where done to bring social peace “between different cultures”. “It’s a complex case which involves a wide territorial area and the investigation must be done with high care and sensibility because it is about a potential cultural conflict – natives and non-natives – that are living in times of high tension” said the responsible judge for the temporary jailing.

By the understanding of defense besides indicating that the tenharim men are arrested solely to satisfy the local community in Humaitá the words of the judge disguises and gives the impression of “judicial scientification of the case hiding ethnical prejudice and a colonialist feeling of eternal domination of the Indigenous tribes therefore camouflages the problem as if the temporary arrests were necessary for the investigations to go on”.

Freedom

In the request of temporary revocation the defenders pointed that there is no concrete proof that the accused – in freedom – threatened the witnesses or even damaged the investigations. If the request is denied then the Indigenous statute will be required in order that the temporary arrest will be changed to “semi-liberty” regime in FUNAI or a place determined by the organ. The DPU also asks for procedural seal.

Signed the Habeas Corpus the federal public defenders Caio Paiva, Bárbara Pires, Carlos Marão, Edilson Santana, Luiza Cavalcanti, Thomas Luchsinger and Vanessa Figueiredo.

Source - Defensoria Pública da União