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News > Latin America

Despite Peace, Colombia Human Rights Groups Face Mass Violence

  • Members of Marcha Patriotica call on the Colombian president to protect human rights activists in the country.

    Members of Marcha Patriotica call on the Colombian president to protect human rights activists in the country. | Photo: Radio Macondo

Published 10 December 2016
Opinion

The leftist Marcha Patriotica asks the newly awarded Nobel prize winner Juan Manuel Santos to protect human rights defenders.

Commenting on President Juan Manuel Santos' Nobel Peace Prize win, members of Colombia's leftist party Marcha Patriotica, demanded the government protect the rights of human and social rights activists after a wave of attacks on social organizations and leaders over the past few months.

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In a statement released Saturday, Marcha Patriotica called on all Colombians to defend peace and the basic human rights of all citizens.

"Each of us must take a stand. Step up and defend the rights of a refugee or migrant, a person with a disability, an LGBT person, a woman, an Indigenous person, a child, an African-descendant, or any other person at risk of being discriminated against or suffering from a violent act."

The organization called on local and international authorities to express solidarity with their leaders who fight to defend human rights and have been persecuted and killed over recent months, despite the fact the government and guerrillas have agreed on a peace deal to end the internal armed conflict. 

"There have been more than 125 human rights defenders murdered, 95 of them only in 2016, the highest figure of homicides in recent years and all with total impunity," the statement reads. 

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"Our leaders face a paramilitary threat that remains belligerent in the territories and seems to have become stronger after the plebiscite process in October this year."

Marcha Patriotica also called on the Constitutional Court to approve several tools that will guarantee both a cease-fire and the implementation of the peace agreements to end the conflict and improve security conditions and political participation in Colombia.

The party was created in 2012 and seeks to reach "a second and definitive independence" and defends a negotiated end to the armed conflict, reparations for victims of the conflict, agrarian reform and sovereignty.

 Piedad Cordoba, a globally-known human rights activist and key figure in the peace process, is part of the organization.

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