[IMC-UK-Features] comrades from indymedia ecuador arrested

[deano]

English translation of communiques here:



URGENT: SOLIDARITY WITH INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS ARRESTED ARBITRARILY by 
National Coordinator for Defence of Life and Sovereignty.
http://ecuador.indymedia.org/es/2008/05/25116.shtml

Communique #1 – Ecuador Indymedia Journos Victims of Arbitrary Arrest

Quito - Ecuador

Tuesday 6th of May 2008, between 10 and 12 at night, Francisco 
Jaramillo, Carlos Andrade, Santiago Cadena, Diana Cabascango of 
Indymedia Ecuador, were arrested.
Public Prosecutor Doctor Francisco Noboa led the raid. Said prosecutor 
refused to inform the lawyers of those arrested why they were detained, 
did not want to report which judge would see the case, did not show the 
raid and arrest warrant. These facts make it a crime of conscience, that 
is to say, a politically motivated detention. The detainees were active 
critics of the system's abuses of power and human rights. Items seized 
from their homes included computers, documents, and political posters.
This act is in violation of article 24(4) of the Constitution, which 
states:
Every person, upon being detained, will have the right to know in clear 
form the reasons for their detention, the identity of the authority that 
ordered it, that of the agents that carry it out, and that of those 
responsible for the respective interrogation.
For this reason INREDH (Regional Foundation of Advice on Human Rights) 
will lodge a complaint against the prosecutor.
The police did not allow lawyers to interview the detainees.
This arbitrary arrest is being reported to international organisations 
like Amnesty International, International Federation of Human Rights, 
World Organisation Against Torture, and Interamerican Human Rights 
Commission.
We demand that the detainees are allowed to communicate, to know the 
reasons for arrest, that the Public Prosecutor and Police officials are 
sanctioned for violation of the human rights of the detainees, and if 
there are no charges then they are released immediately.
We ask the public to be remain aware of this apparent attack on the 
freedom of expression in our country.

Further information: Comunicación INREDH
Amanda Trujillo: 2526365 / 088994039
Ana Cristina Vera: 096200423

E-Mail: ecuador at indymedia.org



Communique #2 – Ecuador Indymedia Journos Victims of Arbitrary Arrest

Indymedia Ecuador 08-05-2008

Further to the events of Tuesday 6th May, we can inform you that four of 
the five detained were freed today after suffering a long interrogation 
and psychological harassment
We want to report the terror tactics used against each of those arrested:
More information: http://www.ecuador.indymedia.org/es/2008/05/25124.shtml
Three of the journalists were on their way to the Independent 
Communication Conference taking place in Peru as part of the Peoples 
Summit (counter summit to NAFTA, EU CAN), they were arrested in a 
spectacular GIR (an elite national Police group) and Interpol operation, 
they were intercepted at the station about to start their journey.
Two homes were raided and computers, documents, books, posters, 
cassettes and cd´s were taken away for investigation, which added to the 
psychological harassment of their interrogation.
As mentioned in the previous communique, they were all unable to 
communicate while they were interrogated all night without the presence 
of a lawyer, the motive for the arrests and raids are still unknown.
According to our sources, Interpol investigations and home raids of 
everyone else of Indymedia Ecuador will continue.
We want to tell Interpol that we are not international criminals - the 
criminals who plundered our country are in Miami, we are not terrorists 
– the terrorist is UriBush; we are not organised criminals – those are 
the bankers; we don't traffick drugs, we don't traffick arms – the arms 
corporations, the hawks of the war in Iraq do that; we don't traffick 
people, we don't launder money, we don't produce child pornography – we 
produce artistic documentaries of socio environmental conflicts, 
political and cultural events; we don't perpetrate economic crimes – the 
IMF, the World Bank, the US, and Cuba do that; and we are not corrupt – 
that is the Law.
We see this operation as an imperial terrorist shock tactic to silence 
and terrify collectives, activists, social organisations, urban 
movements, whoever is constantly critical of the established system, the 
status quo, exploitation, the impoverishment of war, injustice.
It is opportune to ask ourselves if Bush's anti-terrorist crusade is 
also being applied in our country by way of an autonomous power? And 
what kind of deal does our country have with Interpol?
We appreciate the solidarity demonstrations which made the fast release 
of our comrades possible, and also the active participation of human 
rights organisations like INREDH.

We are all indymedia (((i)))



Communique #3 – Arbitrary Detention of Ecuador Indymedia Journos

Indymedia Ecuador 08-05-2008

Those of us who make Indymedia Ecuador ratify the accusation of police 
persecution against our independent communications collective, as 
evident in the imprisonment of our comrade Guillermo Lion Garcia 
Aristizabal, nicknamed as Antonio, accused by Interpol of using a false 
document. We firmly reject the violent operation against us on the night 
of May 6th, which was done without proof of the accusations and included 
the raid of two of the comrades' homes by more than forty ski-masked GIR 
police and Interpol agents armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, 
guns, and gas, who seized, isolated, and physically and psychologically 
mistreated the five comrades. We think it is absurd to use military 
special forces methods to take comrades for investigation, and we demand 
the government urgently clarifies the facts. We see a total 
incompatibility between the police actions and the ethical principals of 
democratic government, and we find it hard to believe that government 
minister Fernando Bustamente has ordered an operation that could be 
considered as an act of State terrorism. As we understand it, Interpol's 
intervention in our country would be illegal without the authorisation 
of said minister. Or could it be that GIR means Grupo Independiente de 
Represión?

Find out about the Peoples' Conference in Lima Peru: 
http://www.movimientos.org/ea3/

Besides the violation of due process, the human rights of our comrades 
were also violated: two of them were taken handcuffed and ski-masked and 
separated from the other three, they beat them, threatened them with 
death, carried them off in a police vehicle to the house they had raided 
first without telling them. The first house raided is in Miraflores and 
the second in el valle de Tumbaco, approximately 40km away from each 
other. In both homes things like like CDs, posters, flyers, computer 
hard disks, cassettes, books were taken away, and many neighbours were 
terrified. The police report recorded books about Che Guevara, the life 
of the priest Camilo Torres, and other Latin American political people 
and processes, as 'subversive evidence'? Perhaps Ecuador's police still 
think and act as they did during the authoritarian State of Lucio 
Gutiérrez? It is important to mention that we have been the object of 
observation and monitoring by intelligence organisations for the last 
few months. We consider the persecution against us, and specifically 
against our comrade Guillermo, corresponds to a witch hunt by the 
Ecuadorian police which seems to comply to orders from higher 
authorities like the CIA and Interpol, in the context of criminalisation 
of social protest and the legitimisation of the 'war on terror' 
established by the US government.
In the current latinamerican climate, and in specific the recent 
important events between Ecuador and Colombia, that caused a rupture in 
diplomatic relations between the two countries, and the pronouncement in 
defence of Ecuadorian Sovereignty by the Rio Group and OEA, we think the 
raids, the imprisonment, the violence against us corresponds to the US 
and Colombias' intent to legitimise their armed intervention in our 
country to involve us in Plan Colombia, for which reason they intend to 
persecute every rebellious anti-imperialist demonstration in the world 
by branding it 'terrorist'.
Indymedia is a global network of independent and alternative information 
via the internet formed in Seattle in 1999 during the protests against 
the WTO. It is a counter-information alternative within the so-called 
anti-globalisation movement, opposing neoliberal globalisation and the 
global dictatorship of transnational companies, and aspires to break the 
big private media monopoly that defends the interests of powerful 
economic groups. In Ecuador, Indymedia was born in 2002 during a 
camp-out at Salesiana University against Plan Colombia and the FTAA. We 
are a completely self-managed collective of social media activists, and 
to cover the protests and the demands of the social movements we have 
organised a series of public events like independent cinema shows, 
meetings, video forums, debates, etc.
Comrade Guillermo detained in the provisional detention centre (CDP) is 
a militant social media activist, same as the rest of the collective, 
and has been linked to social movements since his youth, he was a 
student leader in Colombia, his country, which he was forced to leave, 
because as we all know in Colombia one lives under an authoritarian 
pseudo-democratic regime of permanent persecution and aggression against 
the integrity and life of the people involved in social struggles. 
Guillermo is an independent journalist, a comrade who has participated 
in our country in the coverage of forums, discussions, marches, debates, 
sit-ins, student conferences. He is a person deeply committed to the 
peoples' fight for social justice, equality, and participatory 
democracy, an honest friend, respectful, supportive, an anti-imperialist 
comrade with hope for profound democratic changes in Latin America.
We demand Guillermo's immediate release, and the return of everything 
confiscated. We repeat our demand to the Government Minister to clarify 
and explain, to investigate and determine who is responsible for the 
persecution, the violation of legal process, and the violation of human 
rights, and tell us where the order came from for this over-the-top, 
unjustifiable operation.
We appreciate the solidarity of all the movements, collectives, and 
individuals. We are social media activists and part of the struggle for 
freedom, for a fairer world, without exploitation, a world with social 
justice, without hunger or wars. We are all Indymedia (((i)))