The Brazilian Bar Association released a note condemning the assassination of the Brazilian citizen, Jean Charles de Menezes, by the English police.
Jean Charles was killed, by mistake. They mixed him up with a possible practioner of the terrorist acts in the London subways last Friday.
In the note, the Bar Association points out that the death of the Brazilian “demonstrates the risks and the moral absurdities of a police state.”
The Brazilian organization criticizes the side effects of a state of permanent alert, in which “individual rights and guarantees are suspended. An environment of panic and general insecurity is created. The democratic legal state is violated.”
Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim, has met today with his British counterpart, Jack Straw and called on the British Government to compensate the dead man’s family, who lives in Brazil.
“The only thing that would give us satisfaction is to return Jean Charles back to life, but of course that is not possible,” said Amorim. “So some form of compensation to the family would be right because they are humble people.
“It would not lessen the shock and concern about the death of this innocent person, but it would be something concrete in addition to the apologies which have been made.”
The Brazilian Minister also asked London to promptly return Menezes’s body to his family so he can be buried in Brazil.
Amorim added that terrorism had to be fought with respect for human rights. The way the killing was done, he warned, it might played into the terrorists’ hands.