The Senate Constitution and Justice Committee on Wednesday approved in a 20-1 vote a bill that defines territorial control by organized crime as terrorist activity. The bill paves the way for judges to convict gangs such as the First Capital Command (PCC), Red Command (CV) and urban paramilitary mafias (known locally as “militias”) for crimes of terrorism.
The bill was presented in 2021 by Senator Styvenson Valentim from Rio Grande do Norte, one of several Brazilian states periodically plagued by waves of violent street attacks committed by organized crime.
The final draft presented by rapporteur Jorge Kajuru proposes expanding the activities listed in Brazil’s 2016 anti-terrorism law to include “obstructing or limiting the free movement of people, goods and services to exercise parallel power in a given urban or rural region.”
Mr. Valentim wrote that urban militias and other criminal gangs have been spreading “general terror” among the Brazilian population. It is “undeniable,” he added, that “drug traffickers and militiamen” exercise “parallel power over important portions of the population of large Brazilian cities” and curtail individual freedoms.
In several Brazilian cities, organized crime gangs exercise control over the supply of goods and services, such as sales of cooking gas or cable and internet services. They also impose curfews. Schools, public health facilities and stores are closed when shootouts break out with the police or rival gangs.
Pro-Bolsonaro Senator Marcio Bittar from the Amazonian state of Acre proposed an amendment for the bill that in his view would help to cover the activities of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), a left-wing social movement whom he views as similarly occupying and taking control of land. Senator Sergio Moro, a former minister in Jair Bolsonaro’s cabinet and currently on good terms with the pro-Bolsonaro opposition, argued that the new language was not necessary. The amendment was defeated by 7-14.
Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son, proposed an amendment to more closely define urban militias. He and his father have on several occasions spoken favorably of convicted police officers and some militiamen. At his father’s request, Flávio Bolsonaro awarded in 2005 a Legislative Assembly medal to Adriano da Nóbrega, a Rio military police officer and known militia member who was in jail at the time. Mr. Nóbrega was killed by police in the state of Bahia in early 2020. Then-President Bolsonaro called him a “hero”.
Senator Alessandro Vieira argued that Senator Bolsonaro’s amendment would create a “light” version of militias — differentiating between the ones that do and don’t employ death squads and paving the way for convicted militia members to request a reduction in their jail time. Senator Bolsonaro then withdrew the amendment.
The bill on terrorist activity has been sent to the House. A new lawmaker must be appointed as rapporteur before it can be put to a vote.
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