Amnesty International welcomes the release of Mexican prisoner of conscience Jacinta Francisco Marcial, who was held in prison for three years after being falsely accused of kidnapping six federal agents. The mother of six, an Otomí Indigenous woman from Santiago Mexquititlán in the Mexican state of Querétaro, was sentenced to 21 years' imprisonment in December 2006. Amnesty International is calling for a full review into her unfounded prosecution and for her to...

As of 18 August 2009, Amnesty International considers Jacinta Francisco Marcial a prisoner of conscience. This appointment recognizes the innocence of Jacinta while declaring her a person imprisoned only for being an indigenous women with limited access to justice. Thus, the world’s largest movement for the defense and protection of human rights calls on the Mexican authorities to free Jacinta immediately and without conditions. Jacinta, from the Otomi...

Colombia has sent a copy of a video, in which a leftist rebel says the guerrillas supported the presidential campaign of Ecuadorean leader Rafael Correa, to the OAS and Interpol, the government said on Sunday. Correa says the video is a setup and has denied receiving any funds from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Friday's release of the video, in which a top rebel chief says the FARC gave money to Correa's campaign, has heightened tensions between the the Andean...

Colombian and Panamanian authorities are working together to capture FARC boss 'El Becerro', who is in charge of trafficking drugs and weapons between the two borders, reported. Gilberto 'El Becerro' Torres Muñeton is the leader of the 57th front of the FARC and a holds a crucial position in the guerrilla organization, as he controls a strategic corridor through which munitions pass into Colombia and drugs pass out, according to El Tiempo. The newspaper cites a Police source as...

CALI, Colombia - Colombia's FARC rebels on Thursday freed a former lawmaker held captive for nearly seven years in jungle camps in the last of three hostage releases this week by Latin America's oldest insurgency. His two sons sprinted across the tarmac to hug Sigifredo Lopez after a Red Cross team ferried him by helicopter from the jungle to Cali, where he was kidnapped in 2002 in a brazen rebel raid on a provincial assembly. Lopez was the last politician the FARC was holding for prisoner...

REUTERS - Colombia's government said it would allow a left-wing senator to take part in a planned hostage release alongside a Red Cross delegation on Monday, easing doubts about whether the mission would go ahead. FARC rebels freed four hostages on Sunday in the first of three prisoner releases planned this week but complaints of military harassment during the handover cast doubt on the release of two politicians held for years in jungle camps. "The president has agreed to a request...

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) made the announcement in a statement on the Anncol news agency website. "We announce the unilateral liberation soon of six prisoners," read the statement, giving no date. The move is being made "as a gesture towards generating conditions favourable for a humanitarian exchange," euphemism for a swap of hostages for imprisoned FARC rebels. "The conditions, time and place will be announced at the proper time," the...

BOGOTÁ, Dec 19 (IPS) - The leaders of Colombia’s FARC guerrillas ordered the release of two women hostages and the young son of one of them as a gesture of "compensation" for the frustrated facilitation efforts made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombian Senator Piedad Córdoba, and of goodwill towards the hostages’ families. "The order to free them in Colombia has already been given," says a seven-point communiqué sent...

HAVANA -- Fidel Castro offers both praise and criticism for late Colombian rebel leader Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda in a new book published Thursday. "La paz en Colombia" (Peace in Colombia) represents "more than 400 hours of intense work," Cuba's former president said. The book appears nearly eight months after the founder of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, died of a heart attack at the age of 77. Marulanda, Castro said, "did...

Forced recruitment of minors in Colombia by guerrillas and paramilitaries is rising drastically and is now a principal reason for families to flee their homes. Few statistics exist, but one leading organization estimates there are between 8,000 and 13,000 children in the ranks of the country’s illegal armed groups, reported BBC Mundo. “It is estimated that 30 percent of the members of illegal armed groups are minors,” said María Clara Melguizo, spokeswoman for...