Madrid: Garzon says good-bye to his judicial career, sentenced to 11 years of disbarment
The Spanish judge who ordered the detention of General Augusto Pinochet and pursued charges of crimes against humanity against former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, received his own sentence on Feb. 9: 11 years of disbarment and a fine of €2,520 ($3,318) for improperly ordering wiretaps.
Separate charges concerning alleged abuses related to a course he taught previously were recently dropped and a trial related to his pursuit of crimes against humanity charges for Spanish Civil War fascists is still pending.
“I totally reject the verdict,” Garzon said. “I will seek legal means to fight this verdict.”
The International Commission of Jurists said the conviction, and the other charges against Garzon represent “inappropriate and unwarranted interference with the independence of the judicial process.”
Mexico: A woman to be candidate for the right in the Mexican presidential elections
The National Action Party (PAN) nominated Josefina Vazquez Mota, Feb. 5, as candidate for the Mexican presidential elections that will be held July 1.
Mota is the first woman in Mexican history to have the opportunity to become president. In the past, three other women were formally Mexican presidential candidates: Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, in the ‘80s with the Workers’ Revolutionary Party; Cecilia Soto in 1994 with the Worker’s Party; and Patricia Mercado with the /Alternative Social Democratic Party in 2006, but none of them really had any chance of winning.
Mota, an economist, is basing her campaign on a message of hope and family values and support of the every day people, making her perspective as a women valuable with respect to public issues.
Panama: Indigenous protests continue against a miners project
One indigenous person is dead and dozens of others have been wounded and detained in clashes between native peoples from the Ngabe-Bugle tribe and police on the western coast of Panama.
The crisis began Feb. 6, when a group of indigenous people blocked roads, demanding that Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli keep his promise to exempt their village from involvement in a mining and hydro-electric dam construction project being debated in congress, in order to protect the natural resources in the region.
The government “is violating [the rights of] the indigenous people [who] are unarmed, isolated and defenseless,” said Yanel Venado, a delegate from the Coordination for the Defense of Natural Resources and Rights of the Ngabe-Bugle people in Panama’s capital.
Some 32 trade unionists showing solidarity with the indigenous peoples are in jail in the capital.