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Convention of Belém do Pará, includes the right to the protection of other
basic rights including life. Therefore, there is a comprehensive connection
between the guarantees established in the Convention of Belém do Pará and
the basic rights and liberties stipulated in the American Convention, which
applies when dealing with the violence against women as a breach to human
rights.
Arguments of the common intervener
229. Regarding the alleged violation of Article 4 of the Convention, in relation to
Article 1(1) of the same, the common intervener argued that:
“The flagrant violation of the principle of general law of the fundamental
considerations of humanity in the case sub judice”
a)
from the evidence it can be concluded that the facts were a “deliberate
military attack by the State against persons imprisoned under its custody,
defenseless, behind bars in a building, [without means of escape], among
which there were people in advanced stages of pregnancy, elderly women,
and handicapped persons, who were submitted to four days of an
uninterrupted use of armed force by air and land, with weapons especially
chosen to cause an atrocious and inhuman damage […] with the objective of
exterminating them.” Said attack violated all consideration of humanity with
regard to the life and integrity of the prisoners;
“The existence of an armed conflict and the right to life and integrity of the
prisoners of pavilions 1A and 4B”
b)
the people who were detained in the criminal center were civilians
under the State’s custody and, therefore, they were protected by common
Article 3 of the Conventions of Geneva, which prohibits attacks against people
who, within an armed conflict, are not taking part in the hostilities, are out of
combat, or imprisoned;
“Hermeneutics of humanitarian law and the right to human rights”
c)
the operative in the prison “Castro Castro” had the illegal purpose of
murdering the prisoners in mass, “therefore the application of proportionality
tests does not apply here. There are no ‘proportionate and disproportionate
massacres’. The massacres that have been planned, ordered, and directed as
such are illegal acts under international law;”
d)
white phosphorous gas weapons, classified as incendiaries, and high
speed bullets were used. The use of these weapons against civilians and
fighters, or as anti-personal weapons, is forbidden by humanitarian
international law;
e)
the violation to Article 4 of the American Convention also refers to
behaviors directed to taking someone’s life, “to such a point that any behavior
of a State that constitutes an imminent threat against life (as occurred with
all the survivors of the 4 days in question) constitutes a violation to the
obligations of the Peruvian State under [this] Article;”