The law school of the organized on Monday (11) a tribute to its students who were murdered by.
The act, which took place in the Student Room, in Largo do São Francisco, center of, was marked by the posthumous diplomation of Arno Preis and João Leonardo da Silva Rocha and the inauguration of signs in the courtyard of Arcadas, in honor of the students. It is a symbolic gesture of the institution to recognize and repair violence committed in the regime.
Minister of the Civil House in the first Lula administration, José Dirceu (PT) attended the event.
He met the two students honored at the time he was part of the SHE (National Liberating Action) and received military training with them, when he was exiled in Cuba.
“It is necessary to remember Brazil what was the military dictatorship. The attempt of coup of January 8, 2023, including the aberration of the yellow green dagger plan, only reinforces the need to rescue the memory of that period and honor those who fought the dictatorship,” said Dirceu, shortly before the solemnity began.
The former minister was convicted in the scandal of the monthly for active corruption and had his mandate revoked in the House for breach of decorum, having received pardon in 2016. He was also convicted in Operation Lava Jato, by passive corruption and money laundering, but obtained the annulment of sentences in 2024.
Also among the gifts were José Carlos Dias, Minister of Justice of the FHC Government, Luiz Eduardo Greenhalgh, one of the founders of the PT and former federal deputy, as well as Flavio Bierrenbach, former minister of the Superior Military Court and lawyer Taís Gasparian.
During the act, Choir XI of August sang, conducted, under Eduardo Fernandes, iconic songs of the period, such as “Roda Viva”, by Chico Buarque, and “The Drunk and the Balancer”, by João Bosco and Aldir Blanc.
Arno Preis, born in Forquilha, in the interior of Santa Catarina, was a member of the student movement and militant of ALN. Identified by the dictatorship, he had to leave the country, going to Cuba, where he received guerrilla training. In 1971, he returned to Brazil, when he joined Molipo (Popular Liberation Movement).
He was murdered a year later, with fire and drilling, in a joint action by the Goiás Battalion police with the Dops (Department of Political and Social Order). Preis ended up buried as an indigent in the northern region of Goiás, and had his hands amputated by the agents.
João Leonardo da Silva Rocha was Bahia and moved to São Paulo in 1962, working at Banco do Brasil. At the law school, he was a pre -pre -premium colleague and also militated at ALN.
He was arrested in 1969 on charges of participating in the armed tactical group, but was one of 15 released political prisoners during the negotiation of the kidnapping of American ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick. After living in Mexico and Cuba, he returned to Brazil and was killed in 1975 by a group of the Military Police in Palmas de Monte Alto, in the interior of Bahia.
The solemnity at USP is part of the Diplomation of Resistance project, the result of a partnership between the rectory of and the Student Collective Red. Launched two years ago, the initiative honored, at first, students from the Institute of Geosciences (IGC). The diploma also marked the celebrations of the 198 years of creation of legal courses in Brazil.
“These are people who have paid dearly for freedom. If today we enjoy this time to be gathered here, this is because these students gave their lives for it,” Gasparian said in their speech, representing the USP Human Rights Commission.
