 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to Around the World in 8 Minutes, a show from People's Dispatch. This is a show of and for resistance as we delve into the stories of common people around the world who refuse to accept injustice and stand up for their rights. Today, before getting into our latest stories, here's a short clip from Brazil where nearly 1 million people protested in around 200 cities against education budget cuts and pension overhaul. Our stories today deal with the plight of political prisoners, the brave comrades who are deprived of their most fundamental human rights and the struggle for freedom and equality. We first take you to Colombia, where political prisoner Jesus Santrich was finally released on May 30th from the Attorney General's bunker after a legal process fraught with irregularities and violations. The Supreme Court had ordered his release a day before, arguing that he continued to enjoy the privileges of a legislator and hence could not be tried by the ordinary justice system. Santrich was a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, and was a member of their peace negotiation team when they signed peace agreements with the Colombian government in 2016 in Havana. He subsequently became a leader of the new party that emerged, common alternative revolutionary force, also called FARC. Santrich, who is blind and epileptic, was arrested in April last year the request of the Drug Enforcement Agency of the United States. He was accused of trafficking cocaine. When the Havana peace agreements were signed in 2016, a special jurisdiction for peace was set up to probe and punish any crimes that were committed during the five-decade conflict between the guerrilla and the Colombian state forces. However, when arresting Santrich, the Colombian authorities argued that he'd committed the crime after the peace agreements were signed. However, they did not provide proof of the same. On May 15th this year, the HEP barred the extradition of Santrich and demanded his immediate release. The HEP also said that it would process the case. On May 17th, after verdict by Bogota Court and hours of negotiations, Santrich was finally wheeled out of prison. But within minutes, officials from the Attorney General's office took him back into custody. Soon, the news that came out that Santrich had been drugged before he was released. Santrich's lawyers met him a few hours later and found him in a critical state. Doctors said he was suffering from a cardiac arrest. A week after this episode, the Supreme Court announced its ruling. After his release, Santrich announced that he would continue working for a true and lasting peace in Colombia, and said that he would cooperate with the legal process in the Supreme Court as he was eager to clear his name. Santrich's arrest and imprisonment was a tremendous blow to the already fragile peace process in Colombia. Since the agreements were signed in 2016, over 600 social leaders and human rights defenders have been assassinated in what social movements are calling a humanitarian crisis. During these three years, hundreds of social leaders have also been victim to criminalization and legal persecution in our waiting trial in Colombia's prisons. Like the technical secretary of the Congresos Pueblos Julian Hill, who has been in prison for nearly a year on trumped-up charges, a true and lasting peace in Colombia is still a long way ahead. And with a far-right Iván Duque in office, the threats to peace will continue. Next, we bring you to Pakistan, where Ali Wazir, the leader of the Pashtun Tajafous or defense movement called the PTM, and a member of Pakistan's National Assembly from North Waziristan was arrested during a PTM-led mobilization on May 26. The mobilization was against the brutal army occupations that are frequent in the areas inhabited by the Pashtun community. Three activists were killed in the firing, which happened in Baya in the North Waziristan region. Ali Wazir, one of the leaders of the protest, was arrested immediately after. Another leader, Mohsin Dawad, who is also a member of the National Assembly, was taken into custody. The two and seven others are currently being held by the anti-terrorism police. Protests for the release of Wazir and Dawad were being held in Pakistan and other parts of the world, including Argentina, the Netherlands, Brazil, and Turkey. The Lahore Left Front released a statement condemning the killing as well as the arrest of the PTM activist and called for an immediate withdrawal of the armed forces from the region, and the lifting of the curfew and accepting of the demands of the PTM movement. The Left Front comprised of Pakistan Mazdour Qisan Party, the Wami Workers Party, and others expressed solidarity with the movement and demanded the release of all PTM activists. Wazir and Dawad are prominent leaders of the PTM and were elected to the National Assembly in July 2018. Wazir's family has been repeatedly targeted by the Taliban, leading to the death of 13 of his relatives, including his father and his siblings. Pakistan's army, in its statements, defended its action by alleging that the protesters had fired on the security forces first. However, protesters said that they were unarmed and that the presence of an army checkpost on the way of the protest site meant that people could not carry arms. Internet services in the area were suspended and journalists were also barred from covering the protest. Military operations are common in the Wazir-e-San region, which borders Afghanistan, because of the significant Taliban presence. However, it is the Pakistani Pashtun civilians who face the bulk of the violence. They are subjected to abductions, extrajudicial killings, displacement from their homes, and their villages are often besieged in cordon and search operations. It is in this context that the Pashtun Tahafuz movement emerged to fight for Pashtun rights. One of the key issues that the movement has pursued from the very beginning is the presence of a large number of land mines in the Pashtun tribal areas. The regular demonstrations demanding their removal have forced the army to begin the process of removal, although many still remain. The PTM has also protested the extrajudicial killings of Pashtun people, demanding arrests and inquiries for those responsible. For our last story, we take you to Ecuador, with the case of software developer and privacy activist Olavini, who has been unjustly detained since April 11th without any concrete charges and is currently serving a 90-day pretrial detention. In the latest chapter of this brazen political persecution, Olavini was denied bail by an Ecuadorian judge on May 29th on the grounds that, since the Attorney General has not estimated the damage done by Vini, they could not decide on a bail amount. Vini's defense had requested bail and a suspension of the preventative detention, arguing that his case did not meet any of the stipulations to not grant him bail. There are only four reasons why the bail cannot be granted in Ecuador. When the crime is against a minor, a disabled person or an elderly person, crimes with a sentence of over five years, when the person was granted bail before and violated the conditions, and crimes of inter familial violence. Vini's case has caught the attention of activist human rights defenders across the globe due to the political nature of his detention and the glaring irregularities and violations that have occurred at every step of the process. During the hearing, the judge even prohibited Vini from physically attending, despite the request from his defense team. Instead, the judge called for his participation through a video call, even though the hearing was being held in the same city where he is detained. The hearing, which was set to be public, was made private by the order of Judge Marisol Proaño after she heard a cell phone ring. Representatives of the United Nations and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission sent a letter to Ecuadorian authorities on May 7th, asking them to take the necessary measures to protect the rights and liberties of Ola. Jose Charri, a lawyer from Vini's defense team who was present in the hearing, said that Ola Vini is a victim of abusive use of state power, and the defense will evaluate the possibility of asking for her bias corpus in order to determine the legality of the arrest. That's all we have time for in this episode of Around the World in Eight Minutes. To check out more of these stories, check out our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.