At least 28 people were injured sexual assaults by police officers in Colombia during the anti-government protests in the spring of 2021, she complained international Amnesty in a report he released yesterday Thursday (1/12), speaking of a “generalized context” of state violence.
In exhibitionwith a length of 68 pages, the NGO documents these 28 cases among “hundreds of complaints” of “psychological violence, threats of sexual violence, violence due to prejudice against LGBTQI persons, contact and sexual harassment, forced removal of clothing, discrimination on the basis of gender, torture and rape”.
These complaints concern episodes that took place from April 28 to June 30, 2021while massive mass mobilizations were taking place against the conservative government of former President Ivan Duque (2018-2022).
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the tax hike planwhich was eventually shelved due to the popular uprising.
“The state violence faced by the peacefully protesting population to request and demand the exercise of his human rights and the obligation to be accountable is part of a generalized context” of action against him, said Erica Guevara, Amnesty International’s director for the Americas, during of the presentation event of the exhibition in Bogotá.
Under the title “The Police Don’t Care About Me: Sexual and Other Gender-Based Violence in the 2021 National Strike”this report collects testimonies of victims and denounces the “high levels of impunity” of those responsible.
“There was not a single criminal conviction for sexual violence during these protests”said Anies Kalamar, the general secretary of Amnesty International, judging that “violence on the street then translated into violence in the justice system”.
The unprecedented social explosion, spearheaded by young people, was very harshly repressed by the Colombian law enforcement forces. The UN counted at least 46 deathsstressing that the security forces were responsible for “very serious violations” of fundamental human rights.
Source: News Beast
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