Argentina: Adolfo Perez Esquivel Is Discharged from Hospital

The 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, was discharged from the hospital where he was admitted on Saturday due to an ischemic cerebrovascular accident (CVA).

RELATED:

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel: Hospitalized After a Stroke Scare

"We want to tell you that Adolfo has already been discharged and is on his way to Buenos Aires to continue his recovery ... he is clinically stable and lucid," his relatives tweeted.

Son of a Galician immigrant and an Argentine of Guarani descent, Perez Esquivel was born in Buenos Aires in 1931. Supported by various ecumenical Christian groups, he created the Service of Peace and Justice (SERPAJ) in 1974.

A few years later, he participated in the formation of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, an organization that played a fundamental role in registering complaints and testimonies from relatives of the disappeared and other victims of the dictatorship that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983.

The tweet reads, "At an FAO event on the fight against world hunger, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel defended the legacy of Lula da Silva. 'He did an extraordinary job to lift over 36 millions Brazilians out of extreme poverty. Today he is a political prisoner'."

In 1976, Perez Esquivel began to visit several Latin American countries with the aim of designing programs for the development of Indigenous communities and people in situations of social vulnerability. On April 4, 1977, he was arrested by the Argentine military regime and was imprisoned for 14 months in which he was repeatedly tortured.

Thanks to international pressure, he was released in 1978, when the World Cup was being held in Argentina. Two years later, Perez Esquivel received the Nobel Prize for his contribution to the non-violent establishment of peace and justice and for the defense of human rights in Latin America.

Later, Perez Esquivel was appointed a member of the Executive Committee of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights of the UN. At the age of 90, he continues his work for human rights at the SERPAJ Foundation and participates in the "Youth for Peace" Village, a program that assists minors in precarious social situations.