Protesters in 22 cities around Colombia took to the streets in a “masked march” against corruption on Sunday.
Colombian media reported hundreds of protesters assembled from Popayan to Cartagena, all dressed as thieves in black and with masked faces, to symbolize the looting of public money by corrupt politicians.
At the end of the march they removed their masks to “show the country we are willing to show our faces, go back to being legal, to not take shortcuts and to deny that everything has its price.”
As the protesters marched through the city streets, they handed out flyers denouncing allegedly corrupt politicians. Activists highlighted a number of recent corruption scandals, including the Agro Ingreso Seguro agricultural scandal, the EPS health sector scandal and the Bogota public works scandal that saw mayor Samuel Moreno suspended.
In Bogota, the march was headed by three candidates for the upcoming mayoral elections, Gustavo Petro, Antanas Mockus and David Luna. Although all three promised to tackle corruption, none of the candidates engaged in partisan political posturing, in line with the organizers demands that the protest remains free of party politics.
The march was organized by the “Manos limpias” (clean hands) group, which says it is a civil resistance movement inspired by the protests in Africa, the Middle East, Spain and Central Europe.
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