House committee to vote on amnesty for Brazil’s worst prison massacre

As Brazil’s Congress returns from a two-week recess, the House Public Security Committee scheduled for Tuesday a vote on a bill granting amnesty to police officers convicted for the 1992 massacre in São Paulo’s Carandiru prison.

Following a riot on October 2, 1992, 111 inmates were slaughtered over the course of half an hour. The police have always claimed that it was a matter of self-defense, but the prisoners did not have firearms, and many bodies were found with bullet wounds in the back of their heads, in classic execution style.

The Carandiru massacre was the bloodiest episode in Brazil’s penitentiary history and one of the most infamous episodes of police brutality in recent memory. 

It led inmates in São Paulo prisons to band together in groups to avoid repeat episodes. According to several security experts, the...