Personalities around the world demand "the immediate return to the situation prior to the assault against the Mexican embassy, restoring Jorge Glas's political asylum status." | Photo: teleSUR
Quito, May 5 (RHC)-- Political and cultural personalities, led by several former presidents of Latin America, winners of Nobel Prizes, among others, demanded this Saturday the immediate release of former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas, kidnapped a month ago from the Mexican Embassy in Quito.
The statement recalls that Jorge Glas was taken from that headquarters on April 5, as he was "judicially and politically persecuted for 7 years (time spent mostly in prison), and that he was a political asylum in that diplomatic headquarters."
Likewise, they emphasize that "there is no precedent in our region of an attack of this nature on an embassy to kidnap an asylum seeker. Not even the military dictatorships dared to perpetrate an attack of this type which, in this case, was instructed from the most high authority of the State," in reference to the Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa.
The assault on the embassy provoked a forceful response from Mexico, which sued the State
Ecuadorian before the International Court of Justice for violation of the Vienna Convention
on Diplomatic Relations of 1961.
They remember that, on the other hand, in "the most recent Summit of Heads of State and Government of CELAC and at the ALBA-TCP Summit, several regional leaders expressed themselves very strongly.
In that sense, they express their "greatest concern for the health and physical integrity of Jorge Glas and those close to him." At the same time they remember that "his safety is the entire responsibility of the government of Daniel Noboa, the author of his kidnapping."
Likewise, they regret "that the Inter-American System, despite the seriousness of these events and the fact that Jorge Glas received precautionary measures from the IACHR in December 2019, remains silent and does not demand respect for the sacred right to asylum."
Given this, they demand "the immediate return to the situation prior to the assault against the Mexican embassy, restoring the status of political asylum to Jorge Glas" and "that the protection that, within the framework of international law, corresponds to prevail Jorge Glas, and that he be granted the corresponding safe passage so that he can move safely to Mexican territory."
The letter is signed by former presidents Alberto Fernández (Argentina), Ernesto Samper (Colombia), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Rafael Correa Delgado (Ecuador) and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (Spain); as well as the ALBA-TCP executive secretary, Jorge Arreaza, Nobel Peace Prize winner from Argentina, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and the Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez.
