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Judi Lynn

(160,219 posts)
Fri Jun 21, 2013, 09:14 PM Jun 2013

Brazil protests: Dilma Rousseff unveils reforms

21 June 2013 Last updated at 20:50 ET
Brazil protests: Dilma Rousseff unveils reforms

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has unveiled a series of reforms in an attempt to end days of nationwide anti-government protests.

In a televised address she said she would draft a new plan to benefit public transport and that all oil royalties would be used in education.She also said that thousands of doctors would be drafted it from overseas to improve the national health service. Earlier she held an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the protests.

The demonstrations began over transport fare rises in Sao Paulo, but quickly grew into rallies across the country against corruption and other issues.

~snip~
In her address - pre-recorded was broadcast nationally on TV and radio - Mrs Rousseff said she was listening to the demonstrators' concerns. She promised to meet the leaders of the peaceful protests saying she needed "their contribution, their energy and their ability".

~snip~
Answering criticism of the cost of hosting the event, she said the World Cup will be paid for by companies that are making use of the sporting arenas. "I would never allow this money to come out of the taxpayers' money, harming essential areas such as health and education," she said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23012547

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Brazil protests: Dilma Rousseff unveils reforms (Original Post) Judi Lynn Jun 2013 OP
I'm repeating this material from a post I added to a dipstick thread in LBN. Judi Lynn Jun 2013 #1

Judi Lynn

(160,219 posts)
1. I'm repeating this material from a post I added to a dipstick thread in LBN.
Sat Jun 22, 2013, 01:21 AM
Jun 2013

The imagery and the information are simply far, FAR too impressive, too heroic to not repeat it when I get the chance:

[center] [/center]

This woman . . .

was tortured in prison for three years,as a guest of the US-supported right-wing military dictatorship.

She was tortured on their favorite device, the Parrot's Perch, "pau de arrara", a monstrous Dark Ages piece of equipment which they originally used to punish slaves in Brazil hundreds of years ago.

[center]

""Tortura nunca mais" (Torture never again)

This is a monument constructed by the human rights group "TORTURA NUNCA MAIS." This monument depicts the atrocity of torture showing a victim of the "pau de arrara," the infamous "parrot's perch" torture rack, widely used in Brazil during the Military dictatorial regime in the late 60’s and 70’s."




~ ~ ~ [/center]
Wikipedia:

Torture technique

Pau de arara can also refer to a physical torture technique designed to cause severe joint and muscle pain, as well as headaches, and psychological trauma. The technique consists of a tube, bar, or pole placed over the victim's biceps and behind the knees while tying the victim's both ankles and wrists together. The entire assembly is suspended between two metal platforms forming what looks like a parrot's perch.

This technique is believed to originate from Portuguese slave traders, which used Pau de arara as a form of punishment for disobedient slaves. Its usage has been more recently widespread by the agents of the political police of the Brazilian military dictatorship against political dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s and it still believed to be in use by Brazilian police forces<1>, although outlawed<1>. The device was often used as a restraint for a combination of other torture techniques, such as water boarding, nail pulling, branding, electric shocks, and sexual torture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pau_de_Arara

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Dilma Rousseff: From fugitive guerrilla to Brazil's new president
By Helena de Moura, CNN
November 1, 2010 9:06 a.m. EDT

~snip~
When the military finally arrested her in 1970, Rousseff, now 62, says she was severely tortured in order to give up secrets. She told Istoe magazine in 2008 that as a prisoner she was often tied up to the infamous "parrot's perch," a torture device used by Brazil's military police in which the victim is suspended between two metal platforms.

"They gave me electrical shocks, a lot of electrical shocks," Rousseff told Istoe. "I began to hemorrhage, but I withstood. I wouldn't even tell them where I lived," she said. After her release in 1972, the military government forbade her to engage in political activities.

~snip~
During a congressional hearing in 2008, she silenced a senator and won applause for answering criticism that she broke the law in the 1960s for lying to the Brazilian police and for engaging in anti-military subversive activities.

"I was 19 years old, I was in jail for three years and I was barbarously tortured, senator," she said in her televised statement. "Anyone who dared tell the truth to their torturers would compromise the lives of their friends. They would deliver them to their deaths."

More:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/10/31/brazil.winner.profile/index.html

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