IACHR asserts that Bolivia “safeguards” Áñez’s health as it rejects her request for precautionary measures

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The ex-president, currently in pre-trial detention, requested precautionary measures from the international body in search of “protection” and to prevent “suffering irreparable harm,” after repeatedly denouncing the violation of her rights, threats, and attacks against her life and personal integrity, and the lack of access to “adequate” medical care.

Reneaum assured that Bolivia has provided the IACHR with “sufficient information to be able to determine that it was safeguarding her health, several elements related to her health, as this was the key element of the precautionary measure, considering that before her request she had engaged in self-harm in order to take her own life.”

According to the IACHR Executive Secretary, the ex-president is under constant medical observation, with visits from people in her circle of trust and “special permission or conditions that allow her to see a relative on a daily basis.”

“This reduces risk, injury, the psychological impact is minimized, not always controlled, because in general, the prison experience affects people in a complex way, it is a complicated and hard punishment in life,” she added. In this respect, she announced that the organization will “monitor” Áñez’s situation, who, like the other prisoners, suffers from emotional and psychological issues derived from her confinement.

Áñez, in pre-trial detention since March – accused of sedition, terrorism, conspiracy and genocide, among other crimes, for her role in the framework of the 2019 post-electoral crisis – attempted suicide in mid-August, in full deterioration of her state of health, as denounced by those closest to her.