HAVANA.- The President of the Workers Party in Brazil, Gleisi Hoffman condemned on Monday in Havana the use of judicial and parliamentary institutions in Latin America to imprison progressive leaders and stop them from reaching Government positions.

Participating at the 24th Sao Paulo Forum underway until Tuesday at Havana’s Convention Center, the Brazilian attorney denounced the increase of these organizations that “discredit popular leftist figures with accusations that are always linked to corruption”.

Gleisi Hoffman Gleisi Hoffman Hoffman recalled the events against former Presidents Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva submitted to political trials that ended in the dismissal of the first woman to occupy the presidency in Brazil in 2016 and the imprisonment last April of Lula who leads the surveys in face of the elections scheduled for October 7th.

It is a policy against democracy with attempts to naturalize this type of intervention because it is carried out by accredited and constitutional institutions, said the President of the Workers Party who assured that the space of the Sao Paulo Forum is a platform to denounce and warn the press and progressive sectors of society.

Ecuadorean assembly member, Gabriela Rivadeneira said that Latin America is facing a strong neoliberal attack with similar formats in regional countries.

She added that it is not a coincidence that the processes are all similar to several progressive leaders underway in the region which are transforming the reality of the peoples and the fight against the corporate media and the concentration of capital in only a few.

It is not natural for the justice systems to be used by governments to publically destroy these figures, said the President of Ecuador’s National Assembly between 2013 and 2017.

Rivadeneira criticized the use of that mechanism underway in the region to involve Rafael Correa in a criminal process that does not offer guarantees of transparency or the right to defense.

We are dealing with a political reality that must be condemned, she said, denouncing the imprisonment of the legitimate Vice President elect Jorge Glas 8 months ago, first political prisoner in Ecuador, whose case has not had the response of the judicial system.

Nidia Diaz, representative of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, (FMLN) of El Salvador told the press of a political plan orchestrated by imperialism and the oligarchy in her country since 2016 in an attempt to destabilize and block the economy aimed at collapsing the government of Sanchez Ceren.

She added by saying that there are attempts to imprison former Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes and some 30 officials among them the Secretary of Social Inclusion, Vanda Pignato who is currently with health issues.

The Deputy of the Parliament of Mercosur, Jorge Santayana said that there is a deterioration in the democratic process in Argentina, particularly the rule of law with the political objective of stopping or preventing the return of national and popular progressive leaders.

The leader of the Judicialista Party, warned that the use of figures with legal powers together with the control of the mass media aimed are reducing, weakening and obstructing popular participation making it very difficult to have governments that defend the majority return to power.