FREED COLOMBIAN POLITICAL PRISONER TO MEET SCHOOL PUPILS WHO CAMPAIGNED FOR HER RELEASE

5 Dec 2011

A former Colombian political prisoner will visit Ireland this week and meet with two Kenmare schoolchildren who campaigned for her release.

Ms. Rosalba Gaviria Toro - a trade union and human rights activist - is inreland as a guest of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and campaign group, Justice for Colombia (Ireland). She was detained and imprisoned by Colombian authorities in March, 2009 before being released without charge in June 2011.

The head of the Women's Movement for Peace & Human Rights, Ms. Gaviria Toro arrived on December 4, before travelling to Kerry to meet with the two schoolchildren who helped secure her release - Ellie Gudgeon and Annie Cooper - at Pobalscoil Inbhear Scéine, in Kenmare.

The two became active in the campaign for her release, which was organised in Ireland by the Global Solidarity Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and Justice for Colombia (Ireland).

Ms. Gaviria Toro wrote directly to the two girls from Villa Cristina Prison in Quindio , Colombia, stating: "I look forward to meeting you and thanking you in person."

During her time here, Ms. Gaviria Toro will also meet with officials from the Cork Council of Trade Unions, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

On Tuesday December 6, she will address a public meeting on the difficulties facing trade unionists and human rights' activists in Colombia. The meeting will take place at 6.30pm in Dublin's Liberty Hall.

Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist, with more than 4000 activists and officials murdered in the last 20 years by right wing paramilitaries or Government forces. More than half of those murders have taken place since 1991.