In the medical field, there exists some surgical simulators and training platforms that have been developed for training novice surgeons in order to improve their surgical skills and for performing preoperative planning. In this paper we present a haptic platform for surgical needle insertion training gestures. It uses passive brakes based on Electro-Rheological (ER) fluids to provide a safe and realistic physical feedback to the physician. To achieve this objective, a prototype has been built, its kinematic model has been obtained and experimentally validated. The modelling, the bandwidth analysis and the force control scheme of the platform are also presented.