RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Bolivia’s former president, Jeanine Áñez, reiterated her criticism of the Bolivian government in a letter, denouncing being a political prisoner for her struggle in an “almost medieval and totalitarian” era of the country and other South American nations.
“What is happening in Bolivia is an almost medieval and totalitarian era that is repeated in Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, and other places in the world, where there are political prisoners. Among them, great women, defenders of freedom and democracy, brave young people too, who are fighting from their terrible and unjust confinement for the rights these regimes intend to take away from all of them”, lamented the former president.
Likewise, Áñez insinuated that the Bolivian justice system is controlled by the government, led by President Luis Arce, accusing that “jail has been imposed on anyone who raises his head, protests, or demands compliance with the law as in the times of (dictator Luis) García Meza”.
“Unlike the tanks, the paramilitary groups of the Ministry of Government, and the military boot, they use extortion, their shock groups supplanting the real social sectors and the fiscal and judicial guillotine,” she criticized.
ÁÑEZ DEMANDS “THE RIGHT TO A FAIR TRIAL”
Likewise, the former president alerted “the international community, its institutions that watch over justice, human rights and democracies weakened by totalitarian governments” to condemn her “like other women who have given their lives against dictatorships”.
In this line, she pointed out that the Bolivian justice system rejected the briefs presented by her defense, alleging “defective procedural activity”, at the same time that she denounced having been deprived of her “right to a fair trial” with “independent and suitable” magistrates.
Áñez has been in preventive detention since March 15, accused of sedition, terrorism, and conspiracy for her role in the post-electoral crisis of 2019. Bolivian authorities are investigating the case, known as the ‘coup d’état‘ case.