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The far-right politician was involved in using Israeli software Pegasus to spy on political opponents and social activists.

On Wednesday, the Commission for Investigation and Prosecution of the House of Representatives decided to criminally charge former Colombian President Ivan Duque for his involvement in irregularities in the use of the Israeli spyware software Pegasus.

“Among these crimes are money laundering, offering, selling or purchasing tools capable of intercepting private communications, embezzlement by diverting official resources, violation of the legal or constitutional regime of disqualifications and incompatibilities, abuse of authority through arbitrary or unjust acts, and conspiracy to commit a crime,” said Senator Ivan Cepeda of the Democratic Pole.

“It is a wide range of crimes that former President Duque allegedly committed, as it appears he had set up an apparatus for spying on and persecuting political opponents,” he added.

Given the impact of these human rights violations on various sectors of society, some of the victims of the espionage during the Duque administration are prepared to form an association to defend their interests.

“We need to know the truth and the consequences of these actions against our lives and against our families because it was aimed at destroying alternative projects, persecuting the opposition at that time, and affecting the lives of many of us. A thorough investigation must be conducted,” said Gloria Flores, a Senator and member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Through these espionage actions, the Duque administration sought to persecute, terrorize, harass, and limit the freedoms of citizens and progressive social and political groups.

Something similar happened during the government of far-right President Alvaro Uribe between 2002 and 2010. During that period, the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CAJAR), which is dedicated to human rights defense, suffered the consequences of state espionage, and had to turn to international justice in an attempt to put limits on intelligence policies.

“The espionage didn’t end with the Uribe administration but continued during the Duque administration. We were able to show that they used equipment to profile members of the lawyers’ organization. In Colombia, intelligence services lack civilian and judicial oversight to determine the purpose of intelligence in a democratic country,” explained CAJAR member Soraya Hernandez.

For that reason, and to protect democratic processes in this South American country, progressive groups have introduced a bill to regulate intelligence and counterintelligence activities involving the use of technology.

Pegasus software, created by Israeli company NSO Group Technologies, is capable of wiretapping, spying on emails and text communications through applications such as WhatsApp, and scanning documents contained in the memory of mobile phones.

The Zionist entity continues to escalate attacks in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank with the complicit support of the US.

The Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas assured Israel and its allies on Wednesday that they will never surrender to their aggressions, no matter how long the current siege of the Zionist entity against the Gaza Strip.

In that regard, a senior Hamas figure, Osama Hamdan, said: “We do not want the period of aggression against Gaza and the people of Lebanon to be prolonged. The occupiers and their supporters must know that no matter how long it takes, the Resistance will not surrender”.

Hamdan said that the ceasefire by the occupation will allow the cessation of resistance responses from Lebanon and Palestine. The Palestinian leader also warned that one of the enemy’s objectives is to isolate the two movements, but he said that this will not happen.

“Our brothers on the Resistance fronts in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq understand very well the objectives and intentions of the enemy,” he said.

Hamdan accused the US and the West of supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza and obstructing international support. He stressed that the allies of Tel Aviv know what are the demands of Palestine and Lebanon: to stop the current genocidal attacks and end the occupation.

He said that the failure in Gaza of the war strategy of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, pushed him to attack Lebanon. The Israeli army has been carrying out a series of large-scale attacks on Lebanon since Monday, which have claimed the lives of more than 600 people and injured about 2,000.

He called for the suspension of Israel’s membership in the United Nations. He demanded a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the attacks of the occupiers in the West Bank.

Palestinian National Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday called for sanctions against the Zionist entity in the ongoing genocide it is committing against the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Abbas spoke at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. He rose to the podium in the midst of sustained applause and thus began his speech: We will not leave. Palestine is our homeland, the home of our parents and grandparents, and it will remain ours. If anyone has to leave, it must be the usurpers».

He called for the suspension of Israel’s membership in the United Nations. He demanded a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the attacks of the occupiers in the West Bank. He further stated that the State of Palestine will exercise full sovereignty over Gaza and begin its reconstruction once the occupiers have withdrawn from there.

He stated that his people for almost a year have been the object of one of the most heinous crimes in history, by the genocidal war perpetrated by Israel, which to date has killed more than 40,000 martyrs in Gaza alone, with thousands still under the rubble and more than 100,000 injured. He detailed that the occupation killed more than 15,000 children.

He urged the international community to stop the genocide and held it responsible for what is happening in the occupied territories of Palestine. «Stop sending weapons to Israel», he urged.

It also denounced the illegal construction of settlements in the West Bank, the destruction of hundreds of homes of the Arab population and the systematic and violent attacks against Palestinian civilians by occupation soldiers or settlers.

He said that hundreds of Palestinian families have been annihilated and their names have disappeared from the civil registry. Thousands of people have died as a result of the spread of disease, epidemics and lack of medicines and water. Thousands have had to move repeatedly in search of safety, fleeing Israeli aggression.

He demanded the arrest of members of the Zionist cabinet who want to destroy the al-Aqsa mosque and build a Hebrew temple there, and reiterated that al-Aqsa belongs to the Muslims. «Instead of opening itself to reason, Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza and recently opened another criminal chapter by attacking Lebanon. We demand that it be terminated immediately».

«If the Zionist entity believes that it will be free from accountability for its massacres and genocide since 1948 to today, he is wrong», he admitted.

Also held the U.S. accountable. by using the veto to obstruct resolutions in the agency’s Security Council, which demanded an immediate ceasefire from Israel.

He questioned the White House for providing funds and deadly weapons to the Zionist entity, with which it massacred thousands of women and children. Recalled that the U.S. also voted against giving Palestine full membership in the UN: Why the U.S. Why not. Does it take away from our people the legitimate right to be free?» he questioned.

Similarly, he called for the creation of an international peacekeeping force between Palestine and Israel after the end of the current siege on the occupied territories to ensure the security of both states.

During their interventions, the three countries also reiterated the end of coercive and unilateral measures by the United States Government against Latin American nations.

The foreign ministers of Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua denounced on Thursday the foreign interference of the United States in the internal affairs of other countries, Position taken during the 24th Meeting of the Political Council of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Treaty on Trade of the Peoples (ALBA – TCP).

Cuban Chancellor Bruno Rodriguez said that “the regional oligarchies are resorting to policies apparently banished as coups d’état with the connivance of the US government”.

In that regard, he referred to the coup against Bolivia in 2019 and the latest attempt. He also mentioned the allegations made in this regard by the Governments of Honduras and Colombia.

Rodríguez denounced: “Today we see with concern how one of the founding countries of this alliance is attacked with marked belligerence. Venezuela is once again facing the economic, political and media arsenal of imperialism and right-wing extremism aimed at dynamising its sovereign process of economic, social and cultural development”.

“Our brothers in Nicaragua are equally the target of unjust unilateral measures and fierce interference campaigns by the US government,” he added.

He also mentioned that Cuba is suffering the most brutal, prolonged and intense aggression against its economy and its people, and that the United States Government keeps it on the arbitrary and unilateral list of states which allegedly sponsor terrorism.

Rodríguez also denounced the genocide against the Palestinian people. “We demand a wide, Just and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of the establishment of two states, enabling the Palestinian people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and to have an independent and sovereign state within the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and with the guarantee of return of refugees”.

“Our country supports the General Assembly of the United Nations to take decisive and immediate action and decide once and for all the full membership of the State of Palestine in the UN».

Valdrack Jaentschke: “The worthy, free and sovereign peoples of the world are facing old and new forms of aggression”.

Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister, Valdrack Jaentschke, said that the Venezuelan people continues along with President Nicolás Maduro “to face all the aggressions and destabilizations of the imperialists victoriously”.

Jaentschke stated: “Humanity is in critical moments, moments of birth of a new history, of the emergence of a new world order more just, more collective, more solidary and as all birth the emergence of this new world order, multipolar, without hegemonies that are imposed is hard, is difficult, it’s painful”.

He stressed that the world’s worthy, free and sovereign peoples face old and new forms of aggression. “The rifles and gunboats of the past, today reborn in new forms of aggression euphemistically called sanctions, are the same military interventions and the same interferences perpetrated by the Yankee empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries”. He also expressed his solidarity with Venezuela and Cuba.

Celinda Sosa: “We must continue on the path of peace”

The Bolivian Foreign Minister, Celinda Sosa, stressed that people face serious challenges in the face of the multiple crises that the world is experiencing today.

Sosa confirmed that the hegemonic powers and imperialism threaten our unity. “We must continue along this path our commitment to the defence of sovereignty and non-intervention in our internal affairs”.

Also condemned the blockade imposed on Cuba by the White House and demanded that it be lifted immediately and likewise excluded from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, “an unfair measure affecting its economy and preventing the full development of Cubans”.

Sosa also demanded an immediate cessation of the coercive measures imposed on Nicaragua and Venezuela, and of the Israeli genocide against the people of Palestine.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) accused the Rwandan government on Thursday of perpetrating “serious human rights violations in the North Kivu region” (eastern DRC), on the first day of a case initiated by Kinshasa at the East African Court of Justice (EACJ).

The court in Arusha, Tanzania, began hearing claims arising from the case filed by the Congolese government against Rwandan for alleged conflicts in North Kivu, as reported on its social media.

In this and other Congolese provinces, the DRC Armed Forces (FARDC) are facing numerous armed groups, including the powerful March 23 Movement (M23), linked to Rwanda.

“The DRC accuses Rwanda of acts of aggression that allegedly violate its sovereignty, territorial integrity, political stability and independence,” added the EACJ in its statement.

On Thursday, the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced repeated and indiscriminate shelling of displaced camps in northeastern DRC by the Rwandan army and the rebel M23.

He also accused the FARDC and its allied militias, renamed ‘wazalendo’ (‘patriots’ in Swahili), of having put the population at risk by deploying artillery around these settlements, located on the outskirts of the city of Goma, Capital of North Kivu.

Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia’al Sudani, said on Thursday that the Security Council has failed to achieve its main objective: maintaining peace.

“Ending the violations against Palestine is everyone’s responsibility,” said the High Representative of Iraq, while stressing that above all, the Security Council has not achieved its main objective: to maintain peace.

In insisting that Israel is violating the principles of the UN Security Council and the UN Charter, the Iraqi premier said we are witnessing people being attacked by an occupying military force, killing thousands. Talk of famine to eliminate people, he insisted.

In this regard, the Iraqi politician stressed that important principles such as sovereignty and territorial integrity, international humanitarian law and self-determination are under threat in the current context.

The people of Palestine have been denied their right to live in dignity, said the politician, claiming that it guarantees Israel’s impunity. International law is left on paper, he reflected, with the annexation of territories.

He made a critical analysis of the brutal campaign with remote bombing technologies without taking into account that there are unarmed civilians. Similarly, he denounced the new brutal aggression against Lebanon.

Mohammed Shia’al Sudani also declared that his country would provide whatever assistance it could to Lebanon to overcome the effects of this attack, while firmly rejecting occupation and standing up for people’s rights.

“We note that relief agencies in the occupied territories are being attacked,” said the Prime Minister, while underlining that this session is taking place at a difficult time in the Middle East and the world which is being pushed into a large-scale conflict, while the Council is powerless.

Mohammed Shia’al Sudani stressed that this is a difficult test of the world order that threatens its existence.