Police Brutality Against Protesters has Augmented in Colombia 

23-01-2022

Gabriel Borba 

America and Human Rights Researcher,

Global Human Rights Defence 

On January 13th the Human Rights Watch published the World Report 2022, documenting the South American backtracking on human rights. More precisely, regarding Colombia, the report denounced the augmentation of violence by the police.

As reported, Colombian  protesters are constantly facing police brutality. Since 2020, Colombia has seen a rise of peaceful protests against tax reform and the lack of basic human rights.

Protests have come forward to denounce injures, use of grenades, arbitrarily use of force, and even rape from the police officers. The Human Rights Watch found evidence of more than 25 killings of protesters associated with disproportional use of force by the police.

Moreover, the United Nations reported that, since 2016, more than 450 human rights defenders have been killed in Colombia [1].

As documented, the  protesters are abused during and after the manifestations. In addition, the current Colombian judicial system has failed to achieve some sort of justice, since the system did not prosecute or investigate the abusers.

To conclude, the level of impunity concerning human rights violations of protesters is exorbitant. Peaceful  protesters in Colombia have a hard time securing their safety.   

Notes:

[1] More Information can be found here: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/13/latin-america-alarming-reversal-basic-freedoms

Sources and further reading:

The Human Right Watch | hrw.org. 2022: World Report 2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022> [Accessed 23 January  2022].