President Abelardo de la Espriella’s antiterrorist statute would criminalize political opposition, social movements, and social protest, and essentially form a dictatorial regime, said opposition leader Ivan Cepeda on Wednesday.
In a video, Cepeda said that the true purpose of the bill that was leaked earlier seeks “to advance in the formation of essentially a dictatorial regime,.. which, moreover, has such a regime prostrate to drug trafficking.”
“The true objectives of this statute are to wage a crusade against the political opposition, social movements, and social protest, which is a legitimate right of citizens,” said the Senator of the Historic Pact party.
“Most of the articles in this draft are devoted to provisions that seriously undermine civil liberties, human rights, and the right to protest—not to illegal armed groups,’ according to Cepeda.
The broad legal definition of the word terrorism would allow the government to prosecute protest organizers on terrorism charges if any clashes occur between protesters and police.
This law could serve to intensify the persecution already underway in Colombia against journalists, judges, students, teachers, union members, peasants, indigenous people, people of African descent, LGBTIQ+ individuals—in short, any person or group that criticizes the citizen Abelardo de la Espriella, his government, law enforcement, or any state institution. Such a person could be taken to prison—without even prior warning—and subjected to abuse and torture.
Senator Ivan Cepeda
Furthermore, the creation of a National Registry of Terrorist Organizations and Actors would allow the government to criminalize citizens based on an administrative rather than a legal basis, and “grants extraordinary powers to the president to regulate a statutory judicial procedure, specifically the expedited preventive detention proceeding,” said the opposition leader.
The aim is to criminalize social protest; the alleged crime of “manipulating the civilian population” punishes anyone who promotes, finances, organizes, or leads crowds—this is the language of the draft statute—and this is nothing less than the institutionalization of political persecution and the criminalization of free speech.
Senator Ivan Cepeda
The antiterrorism statute will be facing opposition when the government tries to push the legislation through Congress, Cepeda said.
“The Historic Pact rejects this and will do whatever is necessary to ensure that the opposition’s rights and guarantees are respected,” said the opposition leader.
