Liliany Obando
On August 8, 2008, Colombia’s National Police arrested Liliany Obando and charged her with the crime of rebellion and providing funding to a terrorist group. More than a year later, Obando has yet to have her day in court and remains a prisoner in Bogotá’s Buen Pastor Prison. Her work for the international relations commission of FENSUAGRO (The National Federation of Agricultural Farming Unions) included speaking and fundraising trips to Canada, Europe and Australia during which she openly and repeatedly criticized the Colombian government’s human rights record. Obando was the first person arrested as part of the so-called FARC-politica scandal that resulted from alleged evidence found on the laptop computer of FARC Commander Raúl Reyes, who was killed by the Colombian military in March 2008. "The charges against me are politically-motivated," says Ms. Obando. "My work involved denouncing the government’s human rights abuses. The government is concerned with its international image and some of us have spoken out internationally against the government. In this country, the judicial process is politicized and there is a lack of independence. As a result, there is a new crime that exists: the crime of opinion. In Colombia, there are more than 7,200 political prisoners, most of who are prisoners of conscience." (Interview with Gary Leech, editor of Colombia Journal, July 2009.)
