Havana, January 16 (teleSUR-RHC)-- The Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, FARC, has criticized the poor treatment of political prisoners and called for intervention into the grave situation in Colombian jails.

Negotiators of Colombia’s FARC guerrilla slammed the country’s prison system as “rotten” on Friday, calling for policy reform to fix the systemic problems and protect the progress of the ongoing peace negotiations between the government and FARC rebels.

In a statement delivered by FARC leader Sergio Ibanez, the group called for a transformation of the criminal justice system and urged the government to take “immediate measures” to put an end to “arbitrary actions and abuses" committed against “political prisoners” and prisoners of war in Colombian prisons.

The FARC argued that the current prison system aims to “crush” FARC members and other political prisoners with disregard to basic humanitarian norms. The statement said that the country’s prison policy does not uphold rule of law but is instead “more characteristic of a criminal dictatorship.”

The rebel group called for humanitarian intervention into the prison situation, stressing that the poor treatment of political prisoners could impact and “clash” with the peace process between the FARC and the Colombian government, ongoing since 2012 in Havana.