ORDER OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS OF NOVEMBER 11, 1997 PROVISIONAL MEASURES REQUESTED BY THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE MATTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA ÁLVAREZ ET AL. CASE HAVING SEEN: 1. The brief of July 7, 1997, and its attachments, in which the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter "the Commission" or "the Inter-American Commission") submitted to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (hereinafter "the Court" or "the Inter-American Court"), pursuant to Article 63(2) of the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter "the Convention" or "the American Convention") and Article 25 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court (hereinafter "the Rules of Procedure"), a request for provisional measures on behalf of 17 persons connected with the Association of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared Persons in Colombia (hereinafter "the Association" or "ASFADDES") concerning case No. 11.764 before the Commission against the State of Colombia (hereinafter "the State" or "Colombia"). 2. The events set out in the Commission's request, in which it describes the activities of the Association and the acts of which its members have generally been victim, summarized as follows: a) the Association is a nongovernmental organization that brings together and supports the relatives of victims of forced disappearance in Colombia, fights against the practice of forced disappearance, and attempts to obtain reforms in Colombia's national policy in the matter. In recent months, both the National Board of Directors of ASFADDES and its Medellín section Board have expressed their disagreement with a number of judicial decisions that allow military officials, members of paramilitary and political groups have been exonerated and freed in cases of forced disappearance. They have also declared that the right to the truth has not been respected, inasmuch as not all the whereabouts of the disappeared persons have been established nor have all those responsible been punished; b) in May 1992, ASFADDES was described by the then Commander of the Fifth Brigade as "guerrilla sympathizers." From then on its members have been systematically harassed and threatened; c) on May 15, 1997, the Association was forced to close its Ocaña section offices on account of the serious harassment to which its officials were subjected; d) on June 24, 1997, an explosive device with approximately five kilos of dynamite destroyed the ASFADDES' Medellín section offices and files; e) at the time at which the Commission made its request, a ruling was about to be handed down on an administrative request for nullification in a highly pertinent sensitive case involving former General Álvaro Velandia-Hurtado, a senior army officer, in connection with the disappearance of Nidia Erika Bautista, sister of Yanette Bautista and José Publio Bautista and mother of Erik Arellano-Bautista, on behalf of whom the adoption of provisional measures was sought. At that time the Commission considered that this judicial pronouncement would have sweeping repercussions on the members of the Association. 3. The deeds which the Commission alleges alleges to have been perpetrated against the persons on behalf of whom the adoption of provisional measures was sought; they