Wikidata:Showcase Queries/List of people killed by and disappeared during the Brazilian military dictatorship

People killed by and disappeared during the Brazilian military dictatorship

Proponent

Joalpe and Ederporto

Context

This is a query of people who were killed and disappeared during the Brazilian military dictatorship. This query was built for the Wikipedia list Lista de mortos e desaparecidos políticos na ditadura militar brasileira, the first Listeria-generated list to be featured on Wikipedia in Portuguese, possibly on any Wikipedia. Cases on this list are monitored on a dashboard associated to the Brazilian National Archives GLAM-Wiki initiative. The Brazilian National Archives is one of the curators of information on the topic, from where most visual material comes.

The work on bringing information on human rights crimes committed during the military dictatorship in Brazil to Wikimedia projects, including Wikidata, has led to two academic publications: one was already published and mostly focus on improving information on the killed and disappeared on Wikipedia in Portuguese, which eventually led to the creation of the original Wikipedia list of killed and disappeared in 2014; a second one, focusing specifically on the completeness, correcteness and consistency of the Wikidata database on the killed and disappeared, submitted.

A Wikidata Lab was led by Denny in 2019 on how to cope with disagreeing data from the diverse databases that were used to create the list.

Content

This query is based on four methodologically diverse databases on the killed by and disappeared during the Brazilian military dictatorship:

• Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, established in 1995 and linked to the Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, known as CEMDP;
• Documentation Center Eremias Delizoicov and the Commission of Family Members of the Dead and Missing Politicians, known as DP;
• Memories of the Dictatorship, an online project carried out by the Vladimir Herzog Institute, known as MD; and
• National Truth Commission, volume 3, "Political dead and missing persons", published in December 2014 by the Brazilian government, known as CNV.

These four databases "disagree" on the cases that should be considered in their scope. For instance, CEMDP --a political organ that is responsible for investigating political crimes and offering support to survivors of theses crimes-- have considered there were 383 people killed by and disappeared during the Brazilian military dictatorship; the number rises to 422 in the CNV database. Moreover, each database does not consider the same cases, so 8 cases that are part of the DP do not show up in the CNV.

Disagreement also occurs in information that is provided. This occurs particularly with data on the circumstances of the death or disappearance, as different methodologies were used. For instance, DP has relied on family testimonies; CNV has worked with several archives; CEMDP has depended on independent files. Information was made consistent on Wikidata.

This has made information available on Wikidata a combination of elements from these diverse databases, making them connect, allowing comparisons. It creates a comprehensive, consistent data narrative on human-right crimes perpetrated during the Brazilian regime.

Link

Nominated query
This is the query that is being used on Wikipedia for the Listeria-generated list. On the Wikipedia article, it results in 430 cases, but in WQS, because it retrieves multiple member of (P463) QIDs for each case, returns around 980 there.

Use for educational purposes

This content was initially produced in the context of three educational programs at the Faculdade Cásper Líbero. Wiki content curation occurred short after the publication of some of the material that was used, especially reports from CNV. The creation of a complete, consistent and correct database on the people killed by and disappeared during the Brazilian military dictatorship is a major achievement, as it can lead to visualizations of data that were not available before.

Demonstration of completeness of references

This query accesses the completeness of references for the statements of the nominated query.

In accordance with the proposed criteria, this query is...

1. Comprehensive:
   1. Knowable. This query has a finite scope as defined by an independent reliable source (Brazilian National Truth Commission)
   2. Broad. This query has more than 400 results, a non-trivial number.
   3. Stable. The query results have not changed and are very unlikely to ever change by a statistically significant amount.
2. Quality:
   1. Labels: All items have labels in Portugese, Spanish and English, as well as many other languages (they are people's names, which don't require translation).
   2. Statements: All statements that are called in the query have reliable source references. There are no constraint violations on these statements.
3. Clean:
   1. Efficient. The query is complex (and too long to be able to use the URL shortening service), but is the minimum possible to obtain the required result.
   2. Explained. The code now have inline comments about each section and a preamble.
   3. Standardised. It should best-practice coding principles and structures for achieving its purpose.
4. Useful:
   1. Demonstrable. The query is used directly in a Portuguese Wikipedia article Lista de mortos e desaparecidos políticos na ditadura militar brasileira which has been classed "featured article".
   2. Coherent. The query does not arbitrarily combine concepts, its code is not for merely displaying sparql techniques but has a practical purpose.
   3. Convenient. The output of the query is designed for display in a listeria-list on a Wikipedia article. The data visualization is tailored for viewing in that format.