#FreeTenharim: Ativistas ocupam saguão do Tribunal por liberdade para os índios Tenharim

#FreeTenharim: Ativistas ocupam saguão do Tribunal por liberdade para os índios Tenharim  - Trinta manifestantes acamparam por 12 horas no saguão do Tribunal de Justiça de Rondônia (TJ-RO), tendo deixado o local na manhã desta segunda-feira (23), após protocolarem um documento que pede a liberdade dos cinco indígenas Tenharim que estão presos em Porto Velho. 

Estudantes da Universidade Federal de Rondônia (UNIR), o indígena José Humberto Tenharim e ativistas das seguintes ONGs fizeram parte do grupo de manifestantes:  Instituto Madeira Vivo, Instituto Índia Amazônia, Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB), Rede de Educação Cidadã, Conselho Indigenista Missionário, Coletivo Jovem pela Sustentabilidade, e Via Campesina. 

Iremar Antonio Ferreira, membro da ONG Instituto Madeira Vivo, de Porto Velho, e um dos organizadores da manifestação destacou ao G1 [matéria publicada em 23/06/2014] que: “Não há provas que confirmem a culpa dos índios, e o habeas corpus é um direito constitucional. Um deles tem sérios problemas de saúde, por conta de um acidente vascular cerebral sofrido pouco tempo antes da prisão. A justiça pediu comprovação via laudo médico, mas não há como comprovar porque a Casa de Saúde Indígena, em Humaitá, foi incendiada”. Sobre o incêndio da Casa de Saúde Indígena, leia aqui.

José Humberto Tenharim falou ao G1 da indignação pela prisão do cacique Domiceno Tenharim: “Ele é nosso líder maior. Nossos rituais estão comprometidos. O Mbotawa, que é a Festa dos Espíritos, deveria acontecer em julho, mas já não sabemos mais... Todo o povo Tenharim está sofrendo com isso, interfere no nosso modo tradicional de viver”. Sobre o ritual Mbotawa e sua importância para o povo Tenharim, leia aqui. Quanto à preocupação dos indígenas quanto à não realização desse ritual, leia aqui, e aqui como se sentem os indígenas presos.

 

Fotos da ocupação do saguão do TJ-RO

Confeccionando cartazes

Afixando cartazes

Cartazes afixados na noite de 22 de junho

Cartazes afixados no piso do TJ-RO

Cartazes afixados durante a noite de 22 de junho

 

O povo Tenharim é contra a construção de hidrelétrica

Acampamento durante a noite

Acampamento no TJ-RO

Manhã de 23 de junho

Preparando para a entrega da declaração ao TJ-RO

Entrega da declaração dos manifestantes ao TJ-RO

The soul and body of Tenharim people in jail - #FreeTenharim

Tenharim ritual. Photo Funai Humaitá

The soul and body of Tenharim people in jail - #FreeTenharim

We're not allowed to have headdress nor practice our rituals. We can't either dance, paint, or anything related to our culture, our things. This is to our body too. Our body and our spirit suffer, we're worried a lot to our people there, in jail.

We are not treated as human beings here. But we are also Brazilian. We're weakened, we're hurt.

We didn't know what was going on. We can't stay here, knowing nothing, and our people can't stay without our rituals and ceremonies. It is a massacre of our spirits. And we have to do the funeral ceremony to our Chief. Without our festivities, everything gets unstructured. Our cerimonies must be done now, in July. If we can’t make them happen, the whole people, we're were all going to be unprotected. All the people will be spiritually unprotected, and then bad things will come, the rituals cannot be stopped, because they're done since the beginning of our people, and it never happened before that we couldn't do the cerimonies. Our people, our culture, everything gets disoriented, confused because we're here and our people is there, in prison. The whole community loses.

Here is the complete report of Tenharim people who had their freedom taken in  Porto Velho, to Rebeca Campos Ferreira, a Federal Prosecutor, expert in Anthropology, on May 22, 2014:

http://www.cicaf.org.br/phocadownload/Artigos/apelo%20tenharim.pdf

Academic article about a ritual that happens every year among the Tenharim people from Marmelos river - "Ritual and quotidian life in southern Amazon: the Tenharim of  Marmelos river", by Edmundo Antonio Peggion:

http://seer.fclar.unesp.br/perspectivas/article/view/36/29

Justice to Tenharim on Facebook

#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