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Non-governmental organizations requested the International Criminal Court (ICC) “their intervention” so that those responsible for spying by the Colombian Army on journalists, opposition politicians and human rights defenders, are brought to justice.
This was expressed by the Colombia Europe United States Coordination Network (CCEEU) in a document requesting the ICC to “intervene to deepen the analysis, within the framework of its preliminary examination activities being carried out on the country, to ensure that those who are most responsible for these criminal plans for attacks against people who defend human rights are identified, processed and brought to justice. ”
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The platform recalls that the computer monitoring programs carried out on this occasion “do not constitute isolated events, but are part of repeated practices that have been developing continuously at least since 2002”.
The investigation titled “The Secret Folders”, published on May 1 by Semana magazine, ensures that members of the Army spied at least 130 people between February and December 2019, including Colombian and foreign journalists, politicians, and rights defenders. humans and even high government officials.
They ask to create a commission
The CCEEU, a platform that groups 281 social organizations and NGOs defending human rights, also asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to take action in light of the “serious situation” in the case of espionage in Colombia.
The platform justifies the request because espionage “affects the rights to privacy, integrity, life and activities in defense of human rights, as well as the conditions for the full validity of democracy and for the achievement and maintenance of peace. “
In this sense, it requests that an interdisciplinary group of experts be formed that can “account for the persistence, affectation and responsibilities of the state and the authorities involved in the implementation of criminal activities carried out by the military intelligence agencies that have affected the country since the year 2002 to the present ”.
Review Cooperation
On the other hand, the Commission asked the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and the other Governments to “review” their policies of military cooperation with Colombia.
This with “the objective of establishing firm guarantees that the transferred resources, tools and capabilities of military intelligence are no longer used for the persecution, espionage or profiling of people who defend human rights.”
They point out that it is necessary to ensure that these resources and capacities are “limited to what is strictly necessary for the fulfillment of precise purposes such as the investigation of serious crimes defined in national legislation.”
Investigate and sanction
At the same time that it makes requests to international bodies, the platform also asks the Colombian government and the control agencies to take the necessary actions to bring those responsible for the espionage to justice.
The Office of the Attorney General, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Supreme Court of Justice requests them to carry out “investigations that allow the individualization, prosecution and effective punishment of all the material perpetrators of these crimes.”
In the same way, it asks the Colombian Government “to take without delay the required measures” to dismantle the activities and structures that the military intelligence “have been carrying out in the last two decades criminal activities and plans of persecution and attacks on the people who defend the human rights and social leaders ”
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