Protection International produces a video document about Colombian human rights defenders in Brussels

“We have never seen such a capacity on the part of the ColombianState to destroy defenders and their work.”

Human rights defenders representing different organisations working in Colombia bear witness in a documentary produced by Protection International about their persecution by the Colombian State.  They have called upon international solidarity to exert pressure on the Colombian Government and obtain the due protection granted to them under undertakings such as the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders.

This document can be viewed on http://www.protectionline.org/spip.... and is part of the international campaign entitled: “Colombia: human rights defenders under threat.” to which 226 organisations from Europe, America, the South Sea Islands have subscribed to.  It has been presented in Bogotá, Brussels, Washington and will be shortly in Madrid.  Protection International (PI) is an international organisation that is a signatory to the campaign.  PI provides tools and tactics for the protection of the defenders and has a protection office in Colombia.

Headquartered in Bogotá, the José Alvear Restrepo law firm has had access to a recent report which ascertains wide scale practices of phone tapping and abusive controls of emails on the part of the State Security Services, the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS, Administrative Department for Security) against defenders, trade unionists, journalists, peasants, indigenous people, Supreme Court judges and even against delegates of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) of the OAE, when it toured Colombia.  “To get a State institution (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad-DAS), which depends directly on the Executive, to persecute human rights defenders in the most loathsome manner, up to the very intimacy of family, children…  We have never seen such willingness on the part of the State to destroy the work of the defenders. ” Luis Guillermo Pérez, from the Federación Internacional de Ligas de Derechos Humanos (FIDH), states in this documentary.

On the Standing Committee for Human Rights of Arauca, Martín Sandoval’s case is symptomatic: he was imprisoned for seven months after the operation headed by DAS and several bodies of the ColombianState in Arauquita on 4 November 2008.  “We were only freed thanks to international solidarity and a visit from the UK Parliament and US and Canadian trade unionists”.

“Because I am a lawyer who defends peasants who are often accused of being guerrilla warriors, we lawyers are accused of being part of the insurgent groups, I am lucky to still be alive but other lawyers weren’t as lucky” Ramiro Orjuela from the Ariari Committee on Human Rights (Meta Department), says.

Luis Alberto Vanegas, from Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia (CUT, Central Union of Workers), recalls that “Colombia is the number one country for murders of trade unionists.  26 trade unionists have been murdered thus far in 2009.”

Moreover, Lina Paola Malagón, from the Comisión Colombiana de Juristas (Colombian Commission of Jurists) was called “stateless” for having presented a report on violence and impunity against trade unionists before the US Congress:“Weeks after that they seriously threatened me and I had to leave the country temporarily to stay alive”.

Emmanuel Raison, the spokesperson of Oidhaco, an organization which groups together 30 European organisations working for human rights in Europe and also signatory to the campaign, states, among other things: “It is by mandate, through the EU Guidelines on Human Rights defenders that European countries have to keep watch of the fate of defenders in Colombia: important things have already been done but we do not think it is enough given the gravity of the situation.”   

For more information:
Protection Desk Colombia: Betty Pedraza: +571-3230460
Protection International Bussels office: +32-2-609 44 07