For the right to a life free from torture: human rights for the "right" humans?

Abstract

In the 21st century, torture survives in Brazil in a wide and systematic manner. It is not a mere residue of the military ★ Mestre em Direito pela Universidade de Utrecht, Países Baixos e doutoranda no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Bioética da Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brasil. ★★ Doutora em Antropologia pela Universidade de Brasília, Brasil. Professora da Universidade Católica de Brasília no Programa de PósGraduação em Psicologia, Brasília, DF, Brasil. Gontijo, Daniela Cabral & Pereira, Ondina Pena. (2012). Direito à vida sem tortura: direitos humanos para humanos direitos? Psicologia Política, 12(24), 313-327. DANIELA CABRAL GONTIJO – ONDINA PENA PEREIRA ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE PSICOLOGIA POLÍTICA 314 dictation or exception in a “peak of criminality” as incited by the media. On the contrary, it has been a rule, one of the symbols of the perpetuation of State terrorism against the subaltern classes, which translates in the selectivity of the “torturable bodies” as well as in history, through an exceptionalist discourse. In this sense, torture renders the prefect crime, which, in Baudrillard’s perspective, expresses the banishment of the real and the instauration of the order of simulacra. Taking research held in the Federal District of Brazil in 2004 as an example, this article intends to understand how public opinion on torture participates of this criminal scenario, in other words, by what means do subjects subtly inscribe themselves in the order of simulacra in which cynical reason is established. This is how political and psychological dimensions imbricate in a scenario in which the greatest threat is the discourse of inevitability.