Colombian opposition party Polo Democrático will denounce what it
calls the persecution of members of its party before international
judicial bodies and several foreign parliaments, it announced Wednesday.
The social democrats compares its current situation with that of the Unión Patriótica, the FARC aligned communist party who saw thousands of its supporters and dozens of its leaders assassinated by paramilitary groups in the 1980’s.
The announcement comes a day after Polo senator Gustavo Petro said Colombian intelligence agency DAS received direct orders from President Álvaro Uribe to shadow him and to look for evidence of the senator’s support for illegal armed groups.
Petro is already accused by the administration of having ties to the FARC.
“There’s a clear decision of President Uribe to capture the senators who fulfil their duty and simply are defending the interests of the poorest,” Polo senator Alexánder López told newspaper El Espectador.
According to the party, several of its regional leaders have already been murdered.
The social democrats are supported by fellow opposition party, Partido Liberal. “the persecution of a Senator of the Republic is something of a police state, it is not something that belongs in a democratis state,” Liberal Party spokesman Carlos Arturo Piedrahita said.
The government has not yet responded to the allegations of the opposition.