Damian Platt

Damian Platt has lived in and worked on Brazil for much of the past 25 years. Between 1997 and 2005 he worked at the Americas Programme at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, initially covering the USA, Colombia, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, before spending 4 years on the Brazil desk. Fact-finding missions across the country led to thematic reports on conditions of detention, police violence and indigenous peoples. 

Between 2005 and 2016 he lived in Rio de Janeiro, working with grassroots cultural, and youth violence prevention, interventions in favela communities. He has published two books about violence and organised crime in Rio, Culture is Our Weapon (2010), and Nothing by Accident (2020). In 2011 he received an MBE for services to human rights and community development in Rio de Janeiro. In 2019 he conceived and organised the construction of a world-class skate park in Rio’s Maré favela complex. In 2021 he organised a panel on Rio’s unknown ‘Cosa Nostra’ for the Global Initiative Against Organised Crime. 

He holds an MSt in International Relations from Cambridge University. He is interested in state-embedded organised crime, and the impact of gang and police violence on civilian populations.