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arrested after their printing presses were discovered and raided early in 1975. These new cases bring the total of Brazil adopted cases to 142 and investigations to 40.
Groups are also attempting to establish the exact whereabouts of political prisoners and are supporting moves within Brazil to improve prison conditions. Hunger strikes in November 1974 at various prisons were publicized in an effort to integrate the prisoners at Linhares prison in Juiz de Fora with other political prisoners. In May 1975, political prisoners at Ilha Grande were successful in their bid to be moved from their remote island prison to the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Action has been taken on behalf of Cesar Quiroz de Benjamin and Ivan Axelrud Seixas. Both boys were minors at the time of their arrest, and in both cases psychiatric and medical examination procedures were manipulated in order that they could be held in irregular situations. Cesar has now been transferred to a civilian rehabilitation center where his treatment improved.
In December 1974, a new submission was made to the United Nations and the Organization of American States presenting allegations of torture and unexplained disappearances. This up-dated an earlier submission in April 1974 giving the names of 210 "disappeared" people. Al's Report on Allegations of Torture in Brazil, originally published in September 1972, was re-issued in July 1974 with a new preface and some minor changes necessary to bring the docu- ments up to date.
National sections have continued activities on behalf of Brazilian refugees driven from Chile following the September 1973 coup.
In March 1975, the case of Luis Basilio Rossi, on which AI has become active, finally came to trial. Although Professor Rossi now lives outside Brazil, a new writ calling for his preventive detention was issued. Several other adopted persons were sentenced on charges of attempting to re-organize the banned Communist Party. However, in most cases defendants had already served the terms imposed on them and were thus released.
Francisco Pinto, the MDB deputy indicted after criticizing President Augusto Pinochet Ugarte of Chile, served six months in prison, having refused the civil pardon which was offered him. Although Marcio Moreira Alves, a deputy who was indicted after addressing Parliament on human rights issues and who fled Brazil in 1968, has now been cleared, President Geisel's use of Institutional Act Number 5 to intervene in a political dispute in the State of Acrem suggests that the brief experiment in distensão and apertura is now closed.
Chile
On 10 September 1974, the eve of the first anniversary of the overthrow of the government of President Salvador Allende Gossens, Amnesty International published an 80-page detailed report on violations of human rights in Chile. A news conference launching the report was held at the United Nations in New York. The report was based on the material gathered by an Al mission in November 1973 and was subsequently updated with the help of the enormous volume of material, including individual cases, received by the Research
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