I am so excited to share some wonderful news with you this morning!! On November 23 the following article was published in The Economist. Brasil is finally on it’s way to reversing the 1979 Amnesty Law that offered protection to corrupt government officials!! The President of Brasil has agreed to form a Truth Committee that will be the first step toward stopping the Human Rights Violations that go on every day in Brasil.

“It’s not by chance that the police replicate a pattern of human-rights violations like that in a military dictatorship,” says Atila Roque, Amnesty International’s Brazil director. Brazil’s security apparatus was built by the generals and has barely been reformed. Each year Rio de Janeiro state police alone kill around 1,000 civilians, most of them poor and black. They are often accused of resisting police action—even those who are shot in the back of the head or show signs of beatings. Many police officers take part in protection rackets and kill those who get in their way. Patrícia Acioli, a judge who had sentenced around 60 officers belonging to death squads and militia groups, was herself shot dead on August 11th. A senior police officer has been arrested on suspicion of ordering the attack.”

Following that article another one was published in The New York Times on December 2.

I have been writing to Amnesty International for a couple of years, and have just recently been contacted by the International Center for Transitional Justice. I have also sent copies of my book to them and to Presidents Rousseff and Obama. I hoped that my letter to President Rousseff might in some small way start a chain reaction. I suppose I will never know if it had any impact but the gratitude that I feel through knowing that along with the thousands of other victims who have cried in vain or also posted their stories on Brasil’s Collective Memory Blog that some small breath of relief can finally be taken.

I am certain that the road to this recovery and change is coming as a result of the collective elevated global consciousness. For your part in contributing to that change I want to thank each one of you who encouraged me and supported me in my endeavor to tell my story.

I am beyond ecstatic today! Thank you!!

Karen Keilt

PS…..Please share this message of hope with everyone!!