For the second time in a row, Colombia does not appear on a human rights “black list from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), according to the organization’s latest annual report.
The annual report from the highest human rights court in the Americas was released on Wednesday but did not include Colombia in its list of countries that need to make special improvements in the field of human rights.
Colombia made the “black list” for 12 years, but 2013 marks the second year in a row that Colombia has been excluded from the list.
The only Latin American countries blacklisted on the report were Cuba, Honduras and Venezuela.
MORE: Colombia no longer on human rights ‘blacklist’
According to an IACHR press release, the report calls attention to countries in the Americas that need to improve in the human rights sphere, and was presented by IACHR Chair, Tracy Robinson, before the Committee on Juridical and Political Affairs of the OAS Permanent Council.
“The Annual Report is not only a mechanism of accounting for what we do, it is a substantive report on the human rights situation in the Americas and an important way in which the Commission identifies and continues a conversation about best State practices and analyses regional challenges in the Americas,” said the organization’s Chair.
Despite Colombia’s exclusion from the list, the IACHR listed several cases of threats and attacks against journalists in the country as areas of concern.
The indefinite detention of individuals in the US’ Guantanamo Bay detention center, and the stifling of press freedom in Ecuador, were two of the hemisphere’s most pressing human right’s issues, stated the organization.
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