2 II. PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE IACHR 4. The petition w as received on July 10, 2009. The IACHR forw arded the relevant parts of the petition to the State on March 27, 2012. The State responded via notes received on May 29, May 30, and June 18, 2012. The IACHR forw arded these communications to the petitioners. The petitioners sent in additional information on July 16, 2012. That communication w as forw arded to the State. The State sent in additional information on October 1, 2012. That communication w as forw arded to the petit ioners. III. POSITION OF THE PARTIES A. Position of the Petitioners 5. The petitioners state that the facts in this matter took place in the context of a systematic practice of arbitrary detentions, acts of torture, and extrajudicial executions perpetrated by State security forces against journalists, students, attorneys, members of the Catholic Church, union leaders, and political dissidents in general, as part the installation in Brazil of a military dictatorship that began w ith a coup d' état on March 31, 1964, and continued until 1985. 6. In this context, Vladimir Herzog, a 38-year-old journalist 1 and editor in chief of the television station “ TV Cultura,” w as purportedly view ed by the military regime as an “ enemy of the State” because of journalistic articles he had published—in particular, a 1974 “ historical account ” that analyzed the first decade of the military takeover in Brazil. Subsequently, according to the petitioners, on the night of October 24, 1975, agents of the Second Army’ s Department of Information Operations of the Center for Internal Defense Operations (“ DOI/CODI” ) in São Paulo summoned the alleged victim to give a statement at that organization' s headquarters, and tried to locate and arrest him, w ithout success. Nevertheless, the petitioners st ate, the alleged victim appeared of his ow n accord at DOI/CODI headquarters the follow ing day, October 25, 1975, to offer a statement . He w as arbitrarily detained, w ithout any w arrant from a competent judicial authority. 7. According to the petitioners, that same day the then-commander of the DOI/CODI disclosed publicly that the alleged victim had died in his cell, supposedly by suicide. The petitioners contend that the alleged victim’ s death w as an extrajudicial execution carried out by torture, and that it w as made to look like a suicide, in line w ith an established practice during Brazil’ s military dictatorship. According to the petitioners, his death shocked Brazilian society and raised aw areness about the w idespread practice of torturing political prisoners. 8. Follow ing the alleged victim’ s death, the petitioners say, a military police investigation w as begun (“ IPM” No. 1.173/75), w hich determined the cause of his death to be suicide by hanging. As a result, the military police investigation w as reportedly closed by the military justice system on March 8, 1976. How ever, the petitioners state that the alleged victim' s next of kin—Clarice Herzog (w idow ) and Ivo Herzog and André Herzog (sons)—filed a civil action for declaratory judgment (Ação Declarat ória No. 136/76), in w hich they requested that the Federal Union be declared responsible for the arbitrary detention, torture, and subsequent death of the alleged victim, and sought appropriate compensation. According to the petitioners, the aforementioned civil action w as filed after evidence had been discovered that led to the conclusion that the alleged victim’ s death by torture had been made to look like a suicide—in particular, testimony from other political prisoners w ho w ere reportedly in the DOI/CODI facility in São Paulo and heard the alleged victim being tortured to death. 1 The petitioners indicate that the alleged victim w as born in Croatia in 1937.