INTER-AMERICAN Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) president Margarette May Macaulay introduced a critical report on Brazil yesterday by demanding: “Killings committed by security forces must end.

“They must protect people not kill them. The focus must be on the protection of life,” she added, singling out electoral campaign pronouncements by far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro.

Presenting preliminary findings after a week-long visit, its first since 1995, the IACHR team cited weak protections of land and women’s rights and a culture of impunity.

“We express a profound concern over the current state of human rights in Brazil, and their future,” the team said in a statement.

“Despite some advances, we found a country that has not been able to face or resolve its historic debts to its citizens.

“Social exclusion, lack of access to justice, fragility of public services are all limiting the conditions of development of the country and the critical situation of access to human rights for the majority of the population,” it said.

Mr Bolsonaro is notorious for racist, homophobic and misogynist comments and plans to loosen gun laws, provide police and soldiers with legal protection to attack gangsters, scale back sex and gender education and treat landless people occupying unused land as “terrorists.”

The team had meetings with government and local officials, civil society groups, indigenous and LGBT communities, favela dwellers and diplomats with the aim of drawing up a report to be presented in the future.

Its preliminary findings highlighted threats to the rights of people living in favelas, which have become areas of intense crime and battles with the police, and black women.

“They are murdered by the tens of thousands, without investigation, judgement, sanction or reparation,” it said.

The group called for results from the investigation into the killing of Rio de Janeiro legislator and human rights activist Marielle Franco in March, and for greater protection for Venezuelan migrants in the north of Brazil.

They did not meet anyone from Mr Bolsonaro’s future team, noting: “If there had been any interest, we were available.”

Incoming Cabinet member Gustavo Bebbiano has demeaned the IACHR as “leftist” and with “zero credibility.”