Hundreds of young people continue to be unjustly imprisoned for their supposed roles in Colombia’s mass popular uprisings between 2019 and 2021. Now, the persistent injustices against these youths have been further compounded by threats from one of Colombia’s most dangerous paramilitary groups: the Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia (AGC).
On December 24, the AGC issued a death threat against 14 lawyers, activists, and journalists working on behalf of political prisoners from the 2021 uprising (see below).
Three of the individuals listed on the threat are affiliated with the Colombia Freedom Collective.
Colombia remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for activists. Hundreds of human rights defenders and activists have been killed, displaced, or forced into exile under similar circumstances throughout the last five years.
We emphatically denounce this effort to intimidate us. It is clear that reactionary forces – both inside and outside of the state – feel threatened by our recent successes in ensuring the release of political prisoners from pretrial detention.
We will not stop struggling until they are all free.
The Colombia Freedom Collective joins our colleagues in Colombia, Latin America, and internationally to embrace and stand in solidarity with all those who have been targeted. We demand immediate effective measures by Colombian state authorities at the local, departmental and national level, and by local, national and international civil society, to protect and defend all of those targeted by these death threats and their organizations, families, collectives, and communities of origin.
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