Journalists talk about 40th anniversary of Vladimir Herzog's death
Journalist Vladimir Herzog was killed in 1975 by the Brazilian dictatorship 
On October 25, 1975, Vladimir “Vlado” Herzog, then editor-in-chief at São Paulo's TV Cultura, was called to testify at the Internal Operations Division, an intelligence and repression agency of Brazilian dictatorship known by the dreaded acronym, DOI-CODI. There, he ended up being arrested, tortured, and killed alledgedly for being a member of the Brazilian Communist Party. The death scene was faked to look like he had committed suicide.
For senior journalist Audálio Dantas, Herzog's death was not a “work accident” during torture. On the EBC's TV Brasil broadcast, Observatório da Imprensa, aired Thursday (Oct. 29), he and program host Alberto Dines mentioned documents that indicate that sectors of the army orchestrated a plan to torture and kill adversaries as a display of power. According to Dantas, it was a clear attempt to show General Ernesto Geisel—a then-ruling military president who favored a transition back to democracy—and his allies that the hardliners could do anything they wanted. “There was a very clear clash between these two groups back then. Before Vlado, the dictatorship had already committed several 'suicides'.”
Dantas pointed out that Herzog's was the 12th arrest of a journalist, and his death turned out to mark the beginning of the end of military rule in Brazil. “That was when people realized something monumentally horrible was going on in this country as so many people were being killed—it was the awakening of the national consciousness against the horror of military dictatorship,” the journalist said.
Although the authorities officially maintained that suicide was the cause of his death, Vlado Herzog, a Jewish man, was not buried in the ground reserved for suicides at the Jewish Cemetery, as would have been dictated by Jewish tradition. That undermined the suicide hoax. Six days later, an ecumenical event organized by Cardinal Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns, Rabbi Henry Sobel, and Pastor James Wright in the São Paulo See Cathedral drew about 8,000 people and eventually turned into a demonstration against the military regime.
It was at that point that his widow, Clarice Herzog, began her quest to find out the truth about her husband's death. In 1979, the family won a legal battle to have the Brazilian State held accountable for Herzog's murder, but his death certificate did not officially admit torture as the cause of death until 2013.
Translated by Mayra Borges
Fonte: Journalists talk about 40th anniversary of Vladimir Herzog's death
