Therezinha Zerbini

Therezinha de Jesus Zerbini ORB (née de Godoy Zerbini; 12 December 1928 – 14 March 2015) was a Brazilian attorney, feminist leader, and founder of the Women's Movement for Amnesty in Brazil. Zerbini chronicled contemporary Brazilian history, reporting on civilians and politicians who had been imprisoned, tortured, and persecuted by the dictatorship, which was systematically denied by the military authorities. Zerbini was a political prisoner who occupied the same cell as president Dilma Rousseff in the Tiradentes State Prison. The amnesty movement was greatly enhanced when the Brazilian Committee for Amnesty (CBA) in Rio de Janeiro was launched, formed by lawyers of political prisoners demanding a broad, general, and unrestricted amnesty, promoted by the Order of Attorneys of Brazil, in February 1978. The following month, Zerbini risked her life in an attempt to deliver a letter to American president Jimmy Carter. In 1979, Zerbini stood by Leonel Brizola, member of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB) in São Paulo and founder of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), when the acronym of the party was lost to Ivete Vargas. Despite her clear position against the military dictatorship, Zerbini also signed the "Manifesto for the Defense of Democracy", coordinated by national personalities, intellectuals, and politicians in reaction to the political practices of the Lula government, thus supporting the democrat Jose Serra.