Demanding Justice for Slain Brazilian Human Rights Defender Marielle Franco
Last updated February 2026
On the night of March 14, 2018, Rio de Janeiro city council member and human rights activist Marielle Franco was executed alongside Anderson Gomes, an employee of the city council. The assailants had followed Gomes’s car, in which Marielle was a passenger, for several blocks before firing over a dozen rounds into the vehicle, killing its occupants.
Marielle’s killing inspired outrage throughout Brazil. She had been a voice for human rights, in particular, the rights of LGBTQI persons in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. Her killing was particularly shocking as she was a elected official, generally considered to be less vulnerable to targeted killing than most Brazilians. What’s more, investigations uncovered that former and current police and government officials had been involved in the murder – garnering national and international attention and demands for accountability.
Despite the vast evidence gathered by journalistic and civil society groups about the role of armed gangs (known as milícias) and high-level officials in the killings and the cover-up of the crime, the official investigations failed to advance. The University Network, at the request of the Brazilian NGO Justiça Global, sought to ensure access to the official investigation for the family and the NGOs following the case. To that end, Executive Director Jim Cavallaro and two Yale Law students fluent in Brazilian Portuguese drafted an extensive legal submission defending the right to access the police and court records. Signatories of the submission included former commissioners and presidents of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, current and former UN mandate holders, and international legal experts and professors from across the Americas and the world.
On February 25, 2026, the Brazilian Supreme Court convicted five defendants for the murder of councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes. The University Network for Human Rights celebrates the sentencing as a long-awaited departure from the historical pattern of impunity for political crimes, gender violence and violence against rights defenders. Convicting the masterminds behind Marielle and Anderson's murders is an important step towards justice. The UNHR is proud to have worked with Justiça Global to ensure transparency in the process and full respect for the rights of family members and civil society organizations in their pursuit of justice.
