Olavo Hanson, May 1, 1970

Olavo Hanson was a member of the Partido Operário Revolucionário (Trotskista) or POR(T). Born in São Paulo in 1937, he joined the student movement of the 1960s and was a member of UNE. He dropped out of the engineering program at the University of São Paulo, got involved with union politics, and by 1970 was working at a chemical factory. Hanson was arrested in 1970 at an International Workers’ Day celebration at Vila Maria Zélia Stadium in São Paulo along with 17 others for distributing ‘subversive’ pamphlets. Due to his previous arrests for similar offenses, Hanson was identified as a leader of those arrested, was brutally tortured for six hours, and died from kidney failure on May 9, 1970. The police investigation proclaimed his death a suicide by ingestion of parathion, a toxic chemical produced in the factory where he worked. News of his death sparked outrage—19 São Paulo union leaders demanded government clarification of his death. And most were convinced that Hanson was killed by DEOPS. Despite widespread accusations of torture, as exemplified by Hanson’s case, the Medici government continued to deny human rights violations and torture despite widespread accusations, even issuing an official statement on the matter on the day of Hanson’s death.