and for leaving a margin for its arbitrary application in social protests. HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS Attacks, threats and killings targeting human rights defenders increased compared to 2015. At least 47 defenders were killed between January and September – including small-scale farmers, peasants, rural workers, Indigenous Peoples including quilombola communities, fisherfolk, riverside dwellers and lawyers – in their fight for access to land and natural resources. Killings, threats and attacks against human rights defenders were rarely investigated and remained largely unpunished. Despite the existence of a national policy and a programme for the protection of human rights defenders, shortcomings in the programme’s implementation and a lack of resources meant that human rights defenders continued to be killed or threatened. In June the suspension of several agreements between governments at federal and state levels to implement the programme as well as spending cuts further undermined its effectiveness. April marked the 20th anniversary of the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre, when 19 landless farm workers were killed and 69 wounded during a brutal operation involving more than 150 police officers in the southeast of Pará state. Only two commanders of the operation were convicted of murder and assault. No police officers or other authorities were held responsible. Since the massacre, more than 271 rural workers and leaders were killed in Pará alone. INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ RIGHTS The demarcation and titling processes of Indigenous Peoples’ land continued to make extremely slow progress, despite the expiry 23 years ago of the constitutional deadline for doing so. A constitutional amendment (PEC 215) that would allow legislators to block land demarcations – thus effectively vetoing Indigenous Peoples’ rights under the Constitution and international law – was under discussion in Congress. Demarcation 94 of land was in some cases blocked by largescale landowners using the land for exportled commodities production. The survival of the Guarani Kaiowá community of Apika´y in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul was at serious risk. In July, the Apika´y community was forcibly evicted from its ancestral lands. Although the community had been notified of the eviction, it was neither consulted nor provided with any relocation options. Apika´y families were left living on the margins of a highway, with restricted access to water and food. In October, an inquiry by the Federal Prosecution Office concluded that the murder of Terena Oziel Gabriel, an Indigenous man, was caused by a bullet shot by the federal police in a 2013 operation at the Buriti farm, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. During a visit in March, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples denounced Brazil’s failure to demarcate Indigenous land and the undermining of state institutions charged with protecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights. REFUGEES, ASYLUM-SEEKERS AND MIGRANTS There were approximately 1.2 million asylumseekers, refugees and migrants living in the country as of October. The government failed to dedicate adequate resources and efforts to meet asylum-seekers’ needs, such as processing their requests for asylum. The average request for asylum took at least two years to process – leaving asylum-seekers in legal limbo during that time. In December the House of Representatives approved a new migration law safeguarding the rights of asylum-seekers, migrants and stateless persons; the law was under evaluation in the Senate at the end of the year. Asylum-seekers and migrants reported having routinely suffered discrimination when trying to access public services such as health care and education. During the year, in Roraima state, 455 Venezuelan nationals – including many Amnesty International Report 2016/17