CRL and LAMP (formerly the Latin American Microform Project) are supporting the efforts of the Ministério Público Federal in Brazil to digitize nearly one million pages of the collection Brasil: Nunca Mais, which contains court documents (processos) from Brazil’s Military Supreme Court. These proceedings document the cases of over 7,000 persons arrested, convicted, and/or executed by the Court between 1964 and 1979. Copied in secrecy, the official records document human rights violations by the military government in Brazil during this period.

LAMP received the collection in 1987 from the Brasil: Nunca Mais project director Rev. Jaime Wright, who was seeking a location to deposit the microfilm copy of the records for safekeeping and use. CRL stored the 543-reel set (OCLC# 31811010), created a reel guide to accompany the 12-volume index (OCLC# 47935623) to the case files, and made the collection accessible to member institutions. Only recently has Brazil expressed readiness to receive these records for public access.

With the support of LAMP and CRL, copies of the film are being sent to Brazil for digitization, after which the collection will be openly accessible via a public database.

This initiative expands CRL’s support of human rights documentation and preservation, described in more detail on CRL’s Topic Guide for Human Rights.

James Simon
Center for Research Libraries
simon@crl.edu