Brazil’s supreme court rules in favour of Indigenous land rights

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/brazil-supreme-court-rules-favour-indigenous-land-rights

Indigenous people celebrate a Supreme Court ruling to enshrine Indigenous land rights, in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023.
Indigenous people celebrate a Supreme Court ruling to enshrine Indigenous land rights, in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023.

INDIGENOUS people in Brazil were celebrating this week after the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit to restrict native people’s rights to reservations on their ancestral lands.

The justices had been evaluating a lawsuit brought by Santa Catarina state, backed by farmers, seeking to block an Indigenous group from expanding the size of its territorial claim.

Nine out of 11 of the high court’s justices voted to support the Xokleng on Thursday.

The group were the victims of one of the most brutal land grabs in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Mercenaries were hired to drive them away from their lands, collecting the ears of those they had killed to claim their reward.

There are some 2,300 Xokleng people living in Santa Catarina, south Brazil, in the Ibirama La-Klano lands alongside two other indigenous groups.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/brazil-supreme-court-rules-favour-indigenous-land-rights

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