Death threats: Colombia’s human rights defenders’ daily bread

Assassinations of human rights defenders and community leaders dropped 23% in the first half of 2019 compared to the same period last year, but death threats went up 75%, according to a think tank.

In its latest report, think tank Somos Defensores, compared the six months leading up to the election of President Ivan Duque to the first six months of this year.

In the first six months of the year, Somos Defensores registered a drop in homicides from 77 to 59 and a rise in death threats from 272 to 477

The NGO said it feared that the drop in assassinations could be reversed in the second half of the year due to the local elections and armed conflict.

Somos Defensores

Somos Defensores fiercely criticized the Duque administration for its denial of reality,  the country’s armed conflict in particular, and consequent attempts to “erase in one blow  what with a lot of effort, we have been trying to build for years, a different country” through the peace process.

Somos Defensores

According to the NGO, the Duque administration “wants to impose a particular ‘order’, molded around its interests, but one that is based on chaos.”

Somos Defensores

Somos Defensores stressed the importance of the effective implementation of the 2016 peace deal with the FARC,  opposed by Duque’s far-right Democratic Center party, in order to prevent a return to armed conflict and political violence.

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