International

Court blames Colombian State for lack of protection of social leaders

Photo: Indepaz

December 13 |

The Constitutional Court of Colombia, faced with the alarming increase of crimes against social leaders in the South American country, declared on Tuesday the “unconstitutional state of affairs”.

According to the court, the violation of the rights of social leaders is “persistent, serious and widespread” and the institutional capacity of the Colombian State does not guarantee the protection of this population.

In this way, the Court’s decision responds to a tutela action filed by 20 leaders and human rights defenders, who claim the constitutional protection of their right to defend their guarantees.

The decision, in addition to exposing the individual violations in concrete cases, recognizes the reasons why the life and personal integrity of the social leaders is at risk.

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It presented the following list: threats and attacks continue, protection schemes do not have a differential approach to gender, ethnic, racial, cultural or territorial issues, protection measures, in some cases, are not sufficient to protect their lives and there are no policies to prevent the systematic stigmatization of which they are victims.

In this sense, the social leaders had requested that “the Attorney General’s Office adopt the necessary measures to give priority in a prompt, effective and adequate manner to the investigations related to threats against the population of leaders and human rights defenders”.

According to the Constitutional Court, the causes of the violation are not completely related to the absence of instruments or instances for the protection of the rights whose violation has been identified.

However, it also made it clear that “the lack of a plan articulated in a clear and precise instrument has contributed to the infringement of rights. In addition, there are serious deficiencies in the organization of available human and material resources, as well as probably insufficient budgetary allocations”.

The Court warned that the violation of the rights of social leaders in Colombia “may be due to the lack of institutional will to dialogue and interact jointly, and requires the authorities to make an effort to adjust their own behavior. In the opinion of the high court, this could contribute to address the structural flaws detected.

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