8. On February 3, 2005, the State submitted its observations on the petition, requesting that it be declared inadmissible for lack of compliance with the requirement to exhaust internal remedies, and because the petition was brought too late, according to Article 46.1(b) of the American Convention. On February 9, 2005, the IACHR transmitted the State's response to the petitioners. On March 3 and on March 10 the IACHR received observations from the petitioners on the response from the State, and these were transmitted to the State on April 29, 2005. 9. On March 2, 2005, during its 122nd regular session, the Commission held a working meeting with the parties to consider aspects relating to the admissibility of the petition and the safety of members of the Ibsen family who had been pursuing the case through the domestic courts. 10. On March 10, April 18, and June 15, the petitioners presented additional information, which was transmitted to the State. 11. On June 30, 2005, the IACHR received a second response from the State. III. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES A. Position of the petitioners 12. The petitioners allege that the Bolivian State committed multiple violations of the American Convention’s provision relating to: the right to life (Article 4), the right to humane treatment (Article 5), the right to personal liberty (Article 7), the right to a fair trial (Article 8), the right to judicial protection (Article 25), the right to participate in government (Article 23), the right to juridical personality (Article 3), and the rights of the family (Article 17), all as a result of the detention of Rainer Ibsen Cárdenas and José Luis Ibsen Peña, their subjection to torture and to cruel and degrading punishment, and their subsequent forced disappearance. 13. The petitioners declared that in October 1971, Rainer Ibsen Cárdenas, a young man of 22, was arrested in the city of Santa Cruz without a court order, with no substantiated charges, and in violation of the standards of due process. After being held incommunicado, he was taken by State agents to the detention center in Political Order Department in Plaza Murillo, next to the Government Palace in the city of La Paz, where he was seen and had conversations with other detainees. According to testimony received, during the night of June 21, 1972, Rainer Ibsen Cárdenas was taken by State agents to one of the detention centers in Viacha y Achocalla, where he was tortured and then shot, in a staged escape bid, together with other alleged militants of the National Liberation Army (ELN). The petitioners maintained that the family of Rainer Ibsen Cárdenas were never informed of his death nor shown his body, and to this date his whereabouts are unknown. 14. The petitioners claimed that, after the disappearance of Rainer Ibsen Cárdenas, his father, José Luis Ibsen Peña, went in search of him, and as a result was the target of threats and harassment by State agents. Terrorized in this manner, the entire family sought refuge abroad. The family sold its assets in order to survive and to continue to pay a lawyer to pursue the case of young Rainer Ibsen Cárdenas. Subsequently, his father returned to Santa Cruz to take further steps in investigating his son’s disappearance. He was arrested by State agents, acting without a court order, on February 10, 1973. Testimony reveals that he was taken to the El Pari detention center of the Departmental Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DIC) in the city of Santa Cruz, where he was held incommunicado and subjected to cruel treatment and torture.1 On February 28, 1973, members of the Ibsen family went to the detention center and were told that he had been exiled to Brazil, at the expense and responsibility of the government. This fact was never confirmed, and there is no record of his having left Bolivia or entered Brazil on the date cited by State agents. The petitioners reported that, at that time, the personal effects of José Luis Ibsen Peña, including eyeglasses, dental plates, a watch and 1 The petitioners claimed that they had testimony from one of the defendants, Elias Moreno Caballero, who declared that Ibsen Peña was detained at El Pari, that he was seized by Hugo Mancilla, and that he had been accused of being a communist and the legal adviser to the Central Obrera Boliviana workers’ movement 2