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News > Bolivia

Argentinian Journalist Remains a Political Prisoner in Bolivia

  • Argentine photojournalist Facundo Molares Schoenfeld.

    Argentine photojournalist Facundo Molares Schoenfeld. | Photo: Twitter/ @pagina12

Published 27 June 2020
Opinion

Since Nov. 2019, Facundo Molares has been in "preventive detention" for his alleged participation in the blocking of a bridge.

Argentine photojournalist Facundo Molares was arbitrarily detained on Nov. 29, 2019, when Bolivia’s coup-born government led by Jeanine Añez was trying to establish itself in power through censorship of independent media.

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His father sent a letter to Argentina's President Alberto Fernandez requesting him to act in favor of the political prisoner's repatriation.

"I respectfully ask you to initiate some action to repatriate my son, unjustly imprisoned in an arbitrary cause, which is politically motivated and has no evidence against him," Hugo Molares said.

Facundo was in Bolivia working for a magazine when the U.S.-backed coup against President Evo Morales was unleashed. Currently, his health is not good and his family fears for his life.

"30,000 comrades present! Never again coups in Latam! Judgment and punishments for all those responsible and complicit in the oppression of the peoples. Freedom for Facundo Morales and all those who are imprisoned for fighting!"

"The photojournalist came to Santa Cruz to cover the elections in Oct. 2019. Due to kidney failure, he was admitted to a hospital on Nov. 11," Argentina's outlet Pagina 12 reported.

A day later, his father traveled to Bolivia to verify his son's health. After doing so, however, Facundo's father was detained for 24 hours by the Añez regime.

"I had to endure the interrogation of an officer who told me that Macri was my country's president and that I should not expect any help from him," Molares' father said.

“My cell was near the entrance. Through a small window, I could hear everything they said. In the early morning, three police teams left and returned with three corpses later.”

Hugo Molares explained that the Bolivian authorities submitted his son to a parody of a judicial hearing in 2019. The interim government's prosecutors accused Facundo of a case in which he was not even mentioned and that had started fifteen days before his arrest.

On Dec. 6, the photojournalist was taken to the Chonchocoro prison, which he is still in "preventive detention" for his alleged participation in the blocking of a bridge.

"They told me that it was convenient for me to leave Bolivia because if we stayed we would be massacred," Facundo's father recalled.

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