July 2013, police in an operation to round up drug traffickers arrested Amarildo de Souza, a bricklayer living in a Rio de Janeiro favela. He was never seen again. Protesters took up De Souza’s disappearance in street demonstrations, which were met with a ruthless police response. Normally, de Souza’s story would have ended there, but public pressure led to a police investigation, and eventually to the arrest of 10 police officers, which were charged with torturing and murdering him. Brazil, one of the largest democracies in the world, is rarely considered to be among the major human rights-violating countries. But every year more than a thousand killings by police – very likely summary executions, according to Human Rights Watch – take place