Family celebrates compensation to the widow of a journalist killed during Brazil's dictatorship

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The family of a Brazilian journalist who was tortured and killed during the country’s military dictatorship on Wednesday welcomed a court decision to grant a monthly stipend to his widow — marking a gesture of reparation in a nation still haunted by that two-decade period.

The federal court in Brazil ’s capital Brasilia ordered the government to pay just over 34,000 reais (some $6,000) per month to Clarice Herzog, 83, for the rest of her life. It's part of a broader push that's underway for reconciliation with the nation's past.

Clarice's lifelong fight for justice echoes that of Eunice Paiva, the wife of leftist congressman Rubens Paiva, likewise killed by the military regime. That story is told in the movie “I'm Still Here,” which is up for three Academy awards — including Best Picture and Best Actress — and has been a box office success.

Last month, Brazilian notaries began issuing hundreds of corrected death certificates for victims of the dictatorship, which state that the deaths were not natural but violent and caused by the state, according to local media.

The Vladimir Herzog Institute and the Herzog family celebrated the decision, which they called “an important milestone” in a statement.

Herzog was killed nearly 50 years ago on Oct. 25, 1975. Due to the plaintiff’s age and ill health, the decision issued on Jan. 31 is effective immediately.

On the day of his death, Herzog voluntarily presented himself to a military barracks after being summoned. The military tried to frame his death as a suicide and issued a photograph of him hanging by the neck from a rope; the gambit backfired, and the image was transformed into an iconic display of the regime’s brutality.

The prestigious journalist’s murder and the debunked story of his suicide sparked what is considered one of the first mass protests targeting the military regime (1964-1985).

In 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a ruling condemning the Brazilian state for Herzog's torture and murder, and for the failure to investigate and hold military dictatorship agents responsible.

That ruling ordered Brazil to pay economic compensation to Clarice Herzog. The ministry for human rights and citizenship noted in a statement that she has already received 100,000 reais, an amount that Rogerio Sottili, the executive director of the Vladimir Herzog Institute, called “symbolic.”

“The example that remains is that you can do anything and nothing will happen to you,” Sottilli added.

In January, the Herzog family filed a request for the adequate financial compensation, Sottili said.

Nonetheless, the decision to grant Herzog’s wife a monthly payment “goes in the direction of Brazil trying to do what it has never done, which is to confront the state’s past violence,” said Sottili in a phone call from Sao Paulo.

The government can appeal. The ministry's statement didn’t say whether it intends to, but noted the previously paid amount and that the government’s amnesty commission already issued a formal apology to Clarice for the persecution she suffered when fighting for justice.

Unlike countries like Argentina and Chile, which established truth commissions and prosecuted former dictators and their henchmen, Brazil’s transition back to democracy was marked by a sweeping amnesty to military officials.