Remembering Brazil's decades of military repression
31 March 2014 Last updated at 01:59 ET
Remembering Brazil's decades of military repression
By Pablo Uchoa
BBC Brasil
On 31 March, Brazil marks the 50th anniversary of the coup which ushered in two decades of military rule. In the repression which followed, almost 500 people were disappeared or killed, and many more detained and tortured. BBC Brasil's Pablo Uchoa recalls the story of one of the detainees, his father Inocencio.
Growing up, I never saw my father as a superhero. But I knew he was a strong man.
Word had it that he had been beaten so aggressively by the military regime that his aggressors once broke a baton on his body.
I was brought up in a politicised, but otherwise ordinary, middle-class family in north-eastern Brazil. The brutal details of what happened in the torture chambers of my country were never mentioned during family events.
Revolution on the mind
My father, Inocencio, was one of 14 surviving siblings born into a humble family. Noticing his love of and aptitude for studying his parents sent him to a religious school, as they had the best reputation.
More:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-26713772
