MIAMI.- The former heads of state who make up the Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas (IDEA Group) expressed their concern about the complaint filed by the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, against the former president of this country, Andrés Pastrana, which, in his opinion, intends judicialize opinions on issues of public interest threatening freedoms of expression and opinion.
In a statement, the IDEA Group leaders condemned the complaint opened by Petro against Pastrana, stating that it is in the same line as the “so-called dictatorships of the 21st century”, which to “perpetuate themselves in power they try to control the judges” and establish a “communicational hegemony in favor of the State.” Such are the cases of Venezuela under Chavismo and Ecuador in the times of Rafael Correa.
“For this they seek judicialize opinions on issues of public interest and typical of plural debate and install deconstructive narratives of the political, social and cultural,” the statement said.
He warns that “the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian experience could be repeated during the government of Rafael Correa by encouraging monetary sentences against editors and politicians who express opinions contrary to their regimes.”
Petro announced a lawsuit against Pastrana for “injury and slander” after the latter publicly criticized the “total peace” policy of the current government. “His campaign and his Presidency, Gustavo Petro, have been nothing other than the fusion of the Government with drug trafficking under the veil of a farce called total peace,” said the former president in his X account.
In response to the complaint, the former president said that the The current government seeks to “judicialize its opponents” to silence them.
“In Gustavo Petro’s strategy of silencing the opposition, criminalizing opinion, the Prosecutor’s Office summoned me to a conciliation hearing on January 30, for the complaint he filed against me. I will demonstrate to the authorities the persecution of this government. “He won’t shut me up,” Pastrana wrote days later on his X account.
In their statement, the former heads of government of the IDEA Group referred to a teaching established by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IDC Court) in the Canese and Herrera Ulloa Cases in 2004, which establishes that freedom of expression must be guaranteed not only for ideas and opinions considered harmless, but also for those that “offend, are unpleasant or disturb the State.”
They highlighted that democracy does not exist without pluralism, tolerance and the spirit of openness.
The declaration was signed by Mario Abdo (Paraguay), Jose Maria Aznar (Spain), Nicolas Ardito Barletta (Panama), Felipe Calderon (Mexico), Rafael Angel Calderon (Costa Rica), Alfredo Cristiani (El Salvador), and Ivan Duque (Colombia). ), Vicente Fox (Mexico), Federico Franco (Paraguay), Eduardo Frei (Chile), Luis Alberto Lacalle H. (Uruguay), Guillermo Lasso M. (Ecuador), Mauricio Macri (Argentina), Jamil Mahuad W. (Ecuador). , Carlos Mesa G. (Bolivia), Lenin Moreno (Ecuador), Ernesto Perez Balladares (Panama), Jorge Tuto Quiroga (Bolivia), Mariano Rajoy (Spain), Miguel Angel Rodriguez (Costa Rica) and Juan Carlos Wasmosy (Paraguay).
Source: WRITING
