The Inter-American Human Rights Commission has taken Colombia off its human rights “blacklist” – but only temporarily, said local media Friday.
After investigation by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR), which has been in Colombia the past week to assess the country’s progress on human rights, the organization announced that the Commission will remove Colombia from it’s “Blacklist,” but only temporarily until a “final decision” is made in 2014, reported El Espectador.
President Santos celebrated the decision, claiming, “This country has advanced as perhaps no other country in respecting human rights.” He want on to say that “Progress (on Human Rights) has been very significant and that should be recognized. Today I think we have been given that recognition. After 11 years of being on the blacklist, we are off it.”
Colombia being taken off the “Blacklist” means formal removal from “Chapter IV” of the IACHR’s annual report, reserved for states, including Colombia for the past 12 years, whose human rights situations merit special attention.
On Tuesday the Commission objected strongly to the proposed military reform currently going through congress, warning that the constitutional reform does not meet the standards set out by the Organization of American States (OAS), yet announced Friday that they would be taking Colombia off the list.
In April the IACHR decided to keep Colombia on its blacklist, citing challenges in dismantling illegal armed groups, weak legal processes in regard to the armed conflict and concern over impunity for extrajudicial executions committed by the military.