THE Brazilian government apologised on Thursday for human rights abuses in the persecution and imprisonment of Japanese immigrants in the years after World War II.

“I want to apologise on behalf of the Brazilian state for the persecution your ancestors suffered, for all the barbarities, atrocities, cruelties, tortures, prejudice, ignorance, xenophobia and racism,” said Enea de Stutz e Almeida, president of the Amnesty Commission.

The advisory board of Brazil’s Ministry of Human Rights that analyses amnesty and reparation requests to victims of political persecution in the country, approved the apology plea in a session in Brasilia attended by members of the Brazilian government and prominent members of the Japanese community. 

A report by the Amnesty Commission acknowledged that 172 immigrants were sent to a concentration camp off the coast of Sao Paulo, where they were mistreated and tortured from 1946 to 1948.

The commission’s rapporteur, Vanda Davi Fernandes de Oliveira, said: “The documents indisputably demonstrate the political persecution and justify the declaration of political amnesty for the Japanese community and their descendants.”

Mario Jun Okuhara, who documented the persecution and supported the complaint, said his ancestors had been imprisoned, tortured and accused of being spies and saboteurs.

He said: “They were not at war: they were struggling to survive, seeking a place in the sun and educating their Brazilian-born children.”