Therezinha Zerbini

Therezinha de Jesus Zerbini ORB (also Therezinha de Godoy Zerbine; 12 December 1928 – 14 March 2015) was a Brazilian attorney, feminist leader, and founder of the Women's Movement for Amnesty in Brazil.[1] She was a personality that marked the contemporary Brazilian history, reporting that civilians and politicians alike who opposed the Brazilian dictatorship had been imprisoned, tortured, and persecuted, a statement which was systematically denied by the military authorities.[2]

Zerbine was a political prisoner who occupied the same cell as president Dilma Rousseff in the Tiradentes State Prison.[3] The amnesty movement was greatly enhanced when the Brazilian Committee for Amnesty (CBA) in Rio de Janeiro was launched, formed by lawyers of political prisoners demanding a broad, general and unrestricted amnesty, promoted by the Order of Attorneys of Brazil, in February 1978. The following month, she risked her life in an attempt to deliver a letter in the hands of President Jimmy Carter, making the then First Lady Rosalynn Carter, responsible for one of the two revolutionary moments of the military period.

In 1979, she stood by Leonel Brizola, member of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB) in São Paulo and founder of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), when the acronym of the party was lost for Ivete Vargas.[4] And despite her clear position against the military dictatorship, she also signed the "Manifesto for the Defense of Democracy",[5] coordinated by national personalities, intellectuals and politicians in reaction to the political practices of the Lula government, thus supporting the democrat Jose Serra.

Life

Zerbni met her husband, General Euryale Jesus Zerbini, who was twenty years older than her,[6] in 1951, when he commanded the security forces in São Paulo. He was the brother of cardiologist Euryclides de Jesus Zerbini. She was a social worker for the Mandaqui Hospital which cared for children with tuberculosis (she already had the disease a few years earlier).[6]

General Zerbini, commanding the unit Caçapava at the time of the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état, was one of the four generals to take a legalist position against the army coup. His political rights were revoked over this.[7] Therezinha Zerbini was required to respond to a military police investigation for helping Frei Tito to get a sitio in Ibiúna owned by a friend of the Zerbini family, which would be the place where the União Nacional dos Estudantes Congress (an organization outlawed by the military regime) was to be held. She was indicted in December 1969 and framed in the National Security Act.[8] She was arrested in her house on 11 February 1970, and sent to prison for eight months,[7] six of them spent in the Tiradentes prison in São Paulo, where she lived with then "gerrilheira" Dilma Rousseff.[9][10][11]

In 1975, Therezinha Zerbini founded the Female Movement for Amnesty (Movimento Feminino pela Anistia, MFPA), which issued a manifesto for general amnesty, managing to gather 16,000 signatures supporting the cause. She dealt with complaints regarding imprisonment, torture and political persecution, a fact that has long been systematically denied by the Brazilian military government. Thereafter, the MFPA began forming committees for amnesty in major cities throughout the country.[12]

Female Movement for Amnesty

The MFPA, a movement of opposition, was founded at a time when guerrilla warfare had erupted. At the same time, the re-organization of Brazilian society and the participation in the elections by the population, even under limitations, were valued as a "means in itself" for reaching a real democracy.[8][13] The movement was taken as a landmark when political activity returned to public spaces, aggregating and mobilizing various sectors of the Brazilian society such as the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), and other political parties still considered illegal entities, the Christian left, academic personnel, trade associations, as well as those who lived in exile, such as political prisoners and their families. The MFPA was a legalized movement with founding documents and a legal statute recorded in 1976,[14] consisting mainly of Catholic women such as Zerbini and other middle-class activists.[15] In this sense, she made opposition "from inside" the regime, playing against its own initial justification, thus attempting to preserve a democracy threatened by totalitarianism. In February 1978, the movement was expanded with the creation of the Brazilian Committee for Amnesty (Comite Brasileiro pela Anistia, CBA) in Rio de Janeiro. Formed initially by lawyers of political prisoners in support of the Order of Attorneys of Brazil, the CBA called for an immediate broad amnesty. The following month, during the visit of then US President Jimmy Carter to Brasília,[16] Zerbini was able to break the US security around the president and deliver a letter to the First Lady Rosalynn Carter, on behalf of the Brazilian women and the movement for amnesty; without making direct references to the regime, the letter read at the opening: "We who fight for justice and peace".[8][9] Although considered "communist" by security sectors, and as feminist by the press, Zerbini said she never adhered to any of these currents.

Political activism after the amnesty

After the revocation of the AI-5 in 1978, Zerbini stood by Leonel Brizola in the rebuilding process of the Brazilian Labour Party (PTB), in São Paulo, and then in the foundation of the Democratic Labour Party (PDT) in 1979.[4] More recently, in September 2010, just before the presidential elections in November, Zerbini was the fifth person to sign the "Manifesto for the Defence of Democracy",[5] issued by intellectuals and politicians alike opposed to the Workers' Party (PT).

Awards

Prize Bertha Lutz (Diploma Woman-Citizen Bertha Lutz)[17]

References
  1. "Therezinha Godoy Zerbini (1928–2015) – Fundou o Movimento Feminino pela Anistia" (in Portuguese). Folha de S.Paulo. 21 March 2015. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
  2. "Cultura: Anistia ampla, geral e irrestrita" (in Portuguese). Fundación Perseu Abramo. 22 April 2006. Archived from the original on 22 September 2010. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  3. "Dilma assume que é a mãe do PAC" (in Portuguese). O Globo. 9 July 2008. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  4. "Therezinha Zerbini" (in Portuguese). Memorias da Ditadura. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  5. "Personalidades Lançam Manifesto em Defesa da Democracia". Estadão (in Portuguese). Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  6. "Therezinha Zerbini". Mamorias da Ditadura.org.br. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  7. "A filha do General". Brasileiros.com.br. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  8. Carboni, Maria Cecília Conte. "Maria Quitúeria: O Movimento Feminino pela Anistia e sua imprensa – 1975–1979". Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. Missing or empty |url= (help)
  9. "Minha história – Therezinha Zerbini: A 'burguesona' que foi à luta". Folha de S.Paulo. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  10. "A Torre das Donzelas". Isto é. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  11. "Dilma Chora no Senado ao Encontrar Amiga Com Quem Ficou Presa Durante Ditadura". Agencia Brasil. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  12. "Mulheres e Politica". Educacional.com.br. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  13. "Mortos e Desaparecidos Políticos" (PDF). Marxists.org. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  14. "Memórias em disputa e jogos de gênero: O Movimento Feminino Pela Anistia no Ceará (1976–1979)" (PDF). Repositorio.ufsc.br. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  15. Cristina Scheibe Wolff, Tamy Amorim da Silva. "MOVIDAS PELO AFETO:TRÊS MULHERES NA RESISTÊNCIA À DITADURA NO BRASIL, PARAGUAI E BOLÍVIA (1954–1989)". Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  16. "CARTER: "JUNTOS PELO ESTADO DE DIREITO"". Banco de Dados Folha. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  17. "Ministra chora ao encontrar amiga com quem ficou presa durante a ditadura" (in Portuguese). Portalaz.br. 11 March 2008. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
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