"JUSTICE HEALS!"
Yesterday Paraguayan lawyer, Human Rights activist and torture survivor, Dr. Martin Almada,
declared to cease taking his medication, in protest against several
attempts to silence him, either through legal charges against him or
recently as well through questioning his mental abilities by the court.
Dr. Martín Almada, has been awarded with the alternative nobel
prize, for his outstanding revelations on the "Operation Condor", a
transboundary criminal network, run by Latin American security forces
during the 70ies and 80ies, to localize, abduct, torture and kill their
opponents. In 1992 Dr. Almada located the so called "Archives of
Terror", containing thousands of files proving the operation.
Dr. Martín Almada, is a survivor of the Operation Condor. He has
been kidnapped and tortured by the joint security forces of the
Southern Cone.
His wife Celestina Perez was killed by the Stroessner regime in 1974.
Since that time he suffers from the consequences of his traumatic
experiences, receiving medication for his relief.
Since two years former torturers, which have been denounced by Dr.
Martín Almada, try to persecute, harass and silence him through
charges before the Paraguayan courts. Now Juan Manuel Morales, having
been denounced by Dr. Martín Almada as being a former agent of
the Stroessner dictatorship, demanded a psyciatric examination of Dr.
Almada within the frame of a court case, Morales is running against Dr.
Almada for so called "diffamation".
To protest against this attemt to pathologize him, and to question his
mental abilities, Dr. Almada declared to the judge and to the forensic
psyciatrist, that from now on he will stop taking any of the
medicaments he used to take for his posttraumatic suffering.
Dr. Almada underlines his decision by reminding, that since more than
30 years he kept claiming an effective medicament to cure his wounds, a
medicament which is called: JUSTICE! "It is not the past, which divides
the Paraguayan and Latin American family", Dr. Almada declared, "but
the lack of justice." And he adds, that JUSTICE IS THE ONLY SOURCE OF
HEALTH FOR ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN VICTIMS OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS.
For more details see attached declaration in Spanish.
For additional information on Dr. Martín Almada see:
http://www.gerechtigkeit-heilt.de/texte/vita_almada.html
Best regards,
Knut Rauchfuss
Bianca Schmolze
Cooperators
World Coalition Against Torturers (WCAT)
International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT)
Project Management
Bianca Schmolze
Bianca Schmolze
has a Master of Business Administration and works for the Medical Care
Service for Refugees since 2002. After serving as a fundraiser, she
became responsible coordinator of the "Justice heals" campaign in 2004.
Furthermore, she has a mandate in the city council of Bochum.
Tel.: +49-(0)234-9041380
Fax: +49-(0)234-9041381
(Thursday and Friday, 10.00–18.00 Uhr)
Supported by
Manfred
Nowak,
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture