What does judicial harassment entail?

What does judicial harassment entail?

Everything indicates that there is an effort to prevent Gustavo Petro from reaching the presidency of the Republic, giving continuity to what was done during his aspiration to become Mayor of Bogota and during his administration. Now they want us to believe that his campaign is financed with money from Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, using former Senator Piedad Córdoba as a pretext to damage the Historical Pact.

This new episode dates from an event at the Tequendama Hotel in December 2021 where Piedad announced her aspiration to the Senate, with the presence of Petro. There, some “Mexican businessmen” stated that they aspired to finance her campaigns and many photos were taken at the event.

In her recent announcement to the public, Piedad stated that her decision to support the Historical Pact and Petro’s presidential candidacy is punished with a new barrage of legal warfare, media lynching and hostilities against the political project of the Historical Pact, which is facing “attempts of judicial entrapment and set-ups, assassination plots, threats and aggressions”, as well as the effective risk of electoral fraud.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, IACHR, has said that criminalization processes are generally initiated through the filing of unfounded complaints, or based on criminal offenses that do not comply with the principle of legality, or on criminal offenses linked to punishable conducts that do not comply with Inter-American standards, such as “inducement to rebellion”, “terrorism”, “sabotage”, “apology of crime” and “attack or resistance to public authority”. They tend to be arbitrarily applied publicly by the authorities. Colombia has considerable experience with criminalization and its possible consequences.

Let’s consider the case of human rights defender Jesús Ramiro Zapata, who was murdered on May 3, 2000 in Segovia, Antioquia, despite having precautionary measures from the IACHR. He was the victim of intelligence and illegal searches, set-ups and unfounded accusations; he was unjustly accused by a State official of participating in the massacre of Segovia on April 22, 1996.  He endured a raid on his home by the security forces on May 25, 1996 -while he was not at home- for being a “promoter of human rights in northeastern Antioquia and a member of the criminal structure of the E.L.N.”, planting explosive material in his home. He was the target of two military intelligence reports against him. The first, dated August 13, 1997, signed by a commander of the Army Battalion, in which he is accused of being a member of the militias and that he presided over the “Seeds of Liberty Collective”, described as an organization of the “subversion. The second, dated August 28, 1997, in which he accuses him of being an active militant of the “Unión Patriótica” (Patriotic Union). (IACHR, Report 4.113, Case 12.295, Jesús Ramiro Zapata and Others).

Just in case people think that this is a thing of the past, this week, on February 22, social leaders Teófilo Acuña and Jorge Tafur were murdered in San Martín, Cesar, by armed men who came to the house where they were that night. Both had been threatened, which was denounced to the authorities, who did nothing to protect their lives. Teófilo Acuña was a well-known peasant leader in southern Bolívar and southern Cesar, president of the Federación Agrominera del Sur de Bolívar and spokesman for the Congreso de los Pueblos. He was facing a judicial process for the crime of rebellion, having been captured in December 2020; a situation that he and other leaders pointed out as a “judicial set-up”, as part of the criminalization campaigns against defenders of peoples and territories.

Lesson learned: criminalization and finger-pointing that always go hand in hand can lead to death.

Gustavo Petro has also experienced the reckless and unfounded actions that constitute judicial harassment.  He has been the victim of several lawsuits that were eventually rejected or denied in the contentious-administrative jurisdiction: questioning his Alternative Democratic Pole Party seat from the 2006-2010 period because he was convicted for the crime of carrying weapons in 1985 without taking into account that a contravention was imposed on him, he was part of the M-19 and his quality of rebel was recognized, granting him a pardon (October-November 2013); seeking that the National Electoral Council revoke the act by which Petro was registered as a candidate for Mayor of Bogota (March 5, 2013); was accused of calling on his Twitter account for “civil disobedience” allegedly violating the rights to “truth, equality and to live in peace” (March 23, 2021); for publishing untruthful and unbiased information and statistics on his social networks (October 24, 2020); for the accusations he made against President Iván Duque that his campaign was financed by drug trafficking (November 3, 2021); and the action for participating in the debate and subsequent vote on the bill (Law 62 of 1993) that sought to reform and strengthen “the civilian character of the National Police” (June 27, 21).

As is well known, the most forceful legal actions were those of the former attorney general Alejandro Ordóñez Maldonado, who on January 16, 2013 opened a disciplinary investigation against him for not agreeing with his policy on sanitation in Bogota. This ended in the decision of December 9, 2013 sanctioning him with dismissal and disqualification, a decision he ratified on January 13, 2014.

Therefore, on October 28, 2013, Petro requested precautionary measures from the IACHR and filed a petition for a case. Regarding the latter, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a judgment on July 8, 2020 in which it ordered the State of Colombia to reform the Disciplinary Code to eliminate the power of the Attorney General to “dismiss” and “disqualify” popularly elected officials; to adapt the rules that allow imposing sanctions for fiscal debts issued by the Comptroller General of the Republic; and amend Law 1864 of 2017 which included an amendment to the Criminal Code that may have the effect of inhibiting a person from running for public office if he or she has been subject to disciplinary or fiscal sanction for violating the political rights of Petro and his constituents, in contravention of Article 23. 2 of the American Convention on Human Rights. None of this has been complied with by Colombia. On the contrary, the sentence has been used as an excuse for corruption in the entity headed by Attorney Margarita Cabello. And at the same time, everything indicates that they are looking for another way to get Petro out of politics.

I am not arguing for immunity from prosecution for anyone. If a crime is alleged to have been committed, it should be investigated in accordance with due process. But when it comes to social leaders and the political opposition, the common thing is that allegations are aired without proof that threaten the good name and can put life itself at risk. What we want is that the harassment, harassment, reckless and unfounded allegations, not exempt of judicial set-ups, cease in order to avoid the murder of those identified and the social explosion that may result.

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