Former President Gaviria accused Ecuador of trying to silence the IACHR

Cesar Gaviria

César Gaviria, former Colombian president, said on Wednesday accused the government of Ecuador and the allied countries of trying to ‘gag’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). His comments come just days before a meeting of foreign ministers of the region to discuss the reform of the institution.

“The proposed changes drastically limit the autonomy” of the entity, an autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), says the former president and former general secretary between 1994 and 2004. He explained in an article published in The Washington Post.

Most of the members who signed the proposed reform from the Commission, which prohibits funding of nations outside the region, the election of members of the Commission from countries not from the party of the Convention and the requirement to provide the same capabilities to all the rapporteurs of the body, according to Gaviria, whose main purpose weaken the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression.

Such Rapporteur has repeatedly criticized the media in Ecuador and Venezuela, raising great discontent in those two governments.