17 December 2019

Urgent: Protest Arrest
of Leftists in Bolivia

Demonstrator arrested in El Alto, Bolivia on November 19 during police massacre that killed at least ten and wounded dozens. (Photo: AFP)

UPDATE, December 18: Facing widespread denunciation of abusive police repression, Bolivian authorities yesterday afternoon released Carlos Cornejo and Leonel Jurado, the two leftists arrested the day before.

DECEMBER 17 – The rightist de facto government of Bolivia that seized power in last month’s “civic-police-military” coup has carried out a new act of repression, arresting Carlos Cornejo, correspondent of leftist Internet publication La Izquierda Diario, and the artist Leonel Jurado. They also detained a young woman, Andrea Mamani, who was later released. Cornejo and Jurado have been charged with “sedition.”

The three were seized by police yesterday afternoon in the city of El Alto, where they were helping prepare an event scheduled for this Thursday at the University of El Alto in solidarity with families of the at least ten people killed in the police massacre against a protest at the Senkata gas plant there on November 19. Speaking today at the District Attorney’s office in El Alto, before he and Jurado were taken back to their cells, Cornejo denounced the arrest as an illegal act of political persecution, stressing that there was not a shred of evidence to back up the charges. His lawyer stated that the police had seized “poster-board, recyclable paper and brushes. Apparently the new government considers painting and art to be highly dangerous.”

The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International demand the immediate liberation and dropping of all charges against Carlos Cornejo, Leonel Jurado and all victims of rightist repression in Bolivia! ■