Solidarity
URGENT ACTION
LILIANY PATRICIA OBANDO VILLOTA, POLITICAL PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE, SUFFERS THREATS OF TRANSFERAL FOR THE DENUNCIATION OF ABUSES COMMITTED BY GUARDS IN THE BUEN PASTOR WOMEN’S PRISON IN BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA
The International Network in Solidarity with the Colombian Political Prisoners, INSPP denounces to the National and International Communities that INPEC (National Institute of Penitentiaries and Jails, by its Spanish Initials) uses transferal as a reprisal against the political prisoners of Colombia, when they denounce violations or threats of their fundamental rights.
We back the petitions of the Political Prisoner LILIANY PATRICIA OBANDO VILLOTA and we demand the Colombian State guarantee her fundamental rights, especially the right to be near her family, and in consequence, THAT THEY ABSTAIN FROM TRANSFERING HER to another prison, given that her nuclear family resides in the city of Bogotá, where she is a DEFENDANT being held in preventative detention.
We call on the National and International Communities to express their pronouncements backing the Urgent Action that the Political Prisoner has presented, sending their communications to the addresses included below. Please feel to use the sample letter written in Spanish for the Colombian authorities be able to read or create your own based on the information provided in this urgent action.
Women’s Prison of Bogota, Colombia
March 8, 2010
Doctor: FABIO VALENCIA COSSIO
Minister of Justice for Colombia
Colonel (ret.): CARLOS ALBERTO BARRAGÁN GALINDO
Director General of INPEC
Doctor: ANA SOFÍA HIDALGO
Director Women’s Prison of Bogota
Doctor: WOLMAR PEREZ ORTIZ
National Public Defender
.
Doctor: RÓMULO MURILLO
Attorney General of the Nation
To all National and International Organizations for the Defense of Human Rights
Reference: URGENT ACTION
Greetings.
I am LILIANY PATRICIA OBANDO VILLOTA, Political Prisoner of Conscience in the condition of DEFENDANT, presently deprived of liberty in Patio Six of the Buen Pastor Women’s Prison of Bogotá. I refer you to the communications you have received soliciting your URGENT ACTION because of the persecution I am suffering on the part of the guards of INPEC. This could result in a TRANFER AS RETALIATION for the reports I have issued against the guards DIANA SALINAS, ESPERANZA GAONA, MÓNICA VALVUENA, LEIDY PAOLA ROMERO, ZOILA PEÑALOSA, DAYANA CRISTINA AGUILAR AND MARIA DEL CARMEN MARTÍNEZ LEIVA. I fear being arbitrarily removed far away from my nuclear family, for which I ask for your immediate intervention in order to prevent violations of my human rights and the fundamental rights of my children who are still minors.
BACKGROUND
I am a mother, head of family, of the minors CAMILO ERNESTO INSUASTY OBANDO, 16 years old, and LAURA VELASQUEZ OBANDO, six years old, who always have depended totally on me and have been under my care. I have been a responsible mother and worker and I have made every effort to provide my children with everything they have needed. But by reason of my detention my children find themselves in the care of my mother, who is of advanced age.
I have a degree in Modern Languages from the University of Nariño and one in Sociology from the National University. At the moment of my detention, I was pursuing my Masters in “Political Studies and International Relations” at the National University of Colombia. Also I was acting as a Defender of Human Rights in the National Federation of United Agricultural Unions (FENSUAGRO, by its Spanish initials).
I am being tried arbitrarily on the charges of rebellion and the administration of resources by reason of the work I was developing in defense of the rights of farm workers. For this I consider myself a Political Prisoner of Conscience, victim of a judicial framing.
I was detained on the orders of the National Attorney General on August 8, 2008, and I am presently held as a DEFENDENT within the penal process going forward with the Ninth Penal Judge of the Specialized Circuit of Bogotá, OSCAR GUSTAVO JAIMES VILLAMIZAR.
During my incarceration, home detention has been denied, a constitutional right for those who are mothers and heads of family.
FACTS
1. Since April 2009 to the present, I have denounced the abuse of authority that the guards have committed in Patio Six of the Buen Pastor Women’s Prison against the political prisoners in reclusion there. These have included degrading searches in the middle of the night, hostile behavior, verbal and psychological mistreatment, verbal threats of transfer, disrespect for our human dignity, obstruction of lawyers’ visits, deceptions in order to submit prisoners to illegal investigations, arbitrary confiscation of authorized articles, among others. (See the annexed reports with the dates of April 18, 2009; September 2, 2009; September 9, 2009; December 2, 2009; and December 30, 2009).
2. Besides the written reports, in different opportunities I have verbally denounced the outrages of the guards, especially those committed during the month of September this past year, toward the end that the mistreatment of the prisoners cease, especially the mistreatment to which they have submitted me, such that I have had to carry injuries and have been singled out on the part of the guards, for which they have utilized information reserved for my trial. An example of this are the false and constant public references of Officer DIANA SALINAS branding me as the lover of the fallen member of the FARC alias Raúl Reyes, a totally untrue accusation that, besides, violates the appropriate process of my case and the presumption of innocence.
3. Because of my constant protests, I have been excluded from participation in human rights activities that have taken place in the prison and visits have been obstructed from my lawyers and human rights defenders who are following my condition in prison and who have been falsely informed that I refused to receive their visits.
4. On December 30, 2009, we political prisoners were the objects of an arbitrary search undertaken by the functionaries LEIDY PAOLA ROMERO, ZOILA PEÑALOSA, DAYANA CRISTINA AGUILAR and the Lieutenant MARÍA DEL CARMEN MARTINEZ LEIVA, who on this day was in command of the guards. During the course of the search, I was physically mistreated and a Discman of mine was confiscated even though the relevant authorities had authorized it. Because of my protests, the guards opted to present a false report against me, alleging that I had attacked the functionaries and that I had in my possession an mp3, an element not authorized in the prison. A test of the false report is that there exist witnesses who observed the aggression of the guard and that the functionaries of the judicial police returned the Discman to me in February because they were informed of the proper authorization.
5. Recently I had knowledge that the Lieutenant MARÍA DEL CARMEN MARTÍNEZ LEIVA has requested my transfer to another prison, using the false report that the guards who were the aggressors have presented. This constitutes a reprisal against me that threatens my proximity to my family and therefore my fundamental rights and those of my children of minor age, and also my condition of defendant.
CONTEXT
These reported events, especially those that occurred in the month of December, have provoked the animosity of the aforementioned guards toward me. They maintain an attitude of vengeance due to the formal written complaints that I have presented before their immediate superiors for the excesses, abuses and transgressions of their own regulations that are referred to in the “Relation and Treatment of the Interned”, and for exceeding the proscribed limits in the exercise of their functions.
All the complaints and reports that I have presented have been based in the dispositions of the National Constitution, the Penal Codes and Procedures, the Code of Penitentiaries and Prisons (Law 65 of 1993), the Decree 407 of 1994, the Minimum Rules for the Treatment of the Incarcerated and other International Standards with respect to the dignified and respectful observation of our human rights as persons deprived of liberty.
During all this time that I have been deprived of liberty I have maintained an exemplary conduct, contributing to the peaceful coexistence in Patio Six where I find myself. None of my companions in incarceration have ever presented any complaint about my behavior.
Equally, on eight occasions I have solicited home detention in my condition of mother, head of the household, in that my children are minors that depend on me. However, these petitions have been denied, and as if this situation were not enough, my proposed transfer would completely destabilize my nuclear family. I would be separated from my children and from my mother who is of advanced age, and obviously this would constitute an additional punishment to what I already suffer enclosed within these walls with the limitations of my rights.
I remember that the primary responsibility for the protection of human rights falls under the constitutional principles that are articulated in treaties and international agreements with the Colombian state which is the responsible body for watching over the application of the rule of the established national constitution and to adhere to the commitments in the matter of human rights and international humanitarian law before the international community. For this reason its judicial duty is to prevent violations of these rights and to take the necessary measures to investigate, identify, judge and sanction those responsible for their actions and omissions or to take the corrective measures of administrative or political nature to prevent these crimes from continuing to be perpetrated.
PETITIONS:
1. That the Ministry of Justice, the General Directorate of INPEC and the Directorate of the Women’s Prison of Bogota, intervene urgently so that the persecuting behavior and the aggression that I have suffered cease and that they offer me guarantees with respect to my fundamental rights. Consequently, DO NOT TRANFER ME FROM THIS PRISON while my nuclear family remains in the city of Bogotá. The Constitutional Court has determined that the inmates must be in prisons near where their nuclear families and their trials are situated, given that I am still a defendant and that my trial is being heard before a judge in Bogotá.
2. That the National Attorney General and the Public Defender exert a special vigilance toward the reports that I have presented and toward the investigations that have begun against the functionaries of INPEC DIANA SALINAS, ESPERANZA GAONA, MÓNICA VALVUENA, LEIDY PAOLA ROMERO, ZOILA PEÑALOSA, DAYANA CRISTINA AGUILAR and MARIA DEL CARMEN MARTÍNEZ LEIVA, so that they may take the proper measures regarding their conduct.
3. That a permanent vigilance is put in place to guarantee that as a result of this denunciation, no more retaliation are committed against me.
4. That the national and international defenders of human rights would write letters in support of this urgent action to the following addresses:
Director for the Presidential Program of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law
CARLOS FRANCO.
E-mail: cefranco@presidencia.gov.co.
Assessor: Fernando Ibarra.
Tel.: +57.1.5659797 o 571 5662064
E-mail: fibarra@presidencia.gov.co
Attorney General for the Nation
ALEJANDRO ORDÓÑEZ MALDONADO
Carrera 5 #. 15-80, Bogotá.
Fax: +57.1.342.97.23; +571.284.79.49. Fax: +57.1.342.97.23;
E-mail: cap@procuraduria.gov.co, quejas@procuraduria.gov.co; y webmaster@procuraduria.gov.co
National Public Defender
VOLMAR ANTONIO PÉREZ ORTIZ
Calle 55 # 10-32, Bogotá.
Fax: + 57.1.640.04.91
E-mail: secretaria_privada@hotmail.com; agenda@agenda.gov.co
National Director of INPEC
CARLOS ALBERTO BARRAGÁN GALINDO
Calle 26 No. 27-48, Bogotá.
PBX (57) 2347474 / 2347262
E- mail: reclamos@inpec.gov.co ; Webmaster@inpec.gov.co
Director of the Buen Pastor Women’s Prison
ANA SOFIA HIDALGO ALVARADO
Cra 47. No. 84 – 25 Barrio Entre Ríos, Bogotá
Teléfono: 6307724 / 6301649 / 6302037 / 2400676 / 6304946
E-mail: rmbogota@inpec.gov.co
Attentively,
LILIANY PATRICIA OBANDO VILLOTA
C.C 30.745.041 DE PASTO
TD. 065593
PATIO 6 RM de Bogotá
CC:
• Dr. Ivonne Lagos Díaz, coordinator INPEC Human Rights Group
• Dr. Diana Novoa Human Rights Commission, Colombian Senate
• Office of the High Commission of the United Nations for Human Rights
• Inter-American Commission for Human Rights
• Fundación Lazos de Dignidad (Bonds of Dignity Foundation)
• Campaña Permanente de Solidaridad con las y los Detenidos Políticos-Traspasa Los Muros (Permanent Campaign of Solidarity with the Political Prisoners-Beyond the Walls)
• Fundación Comité de Solidaridad con los Presos Políticos (Foundation Committee in Solidarity with the Political Prisoners)
•
THE SOCIAL STRUGGLE IS NOT A CRIME, IT IS A STEP TOWARD LIBERTY…
POLITICAL PRISONERS TO THE STREETS
Visit: libertadpresxspoliticxs.jimdo.com
