Bogotá Mayor submits report to the UN, defends police actions during protests

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Mayor of Bogotá, Claudia Lopez, delivered today a report to the representative of the Office in Colombia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Juliette de Rivero, on the alleged human rights violations that occurred during the protests that began on April 28.

According to López, contrary to last September’s protests, when ten people died during the demonstrations against police brutality that caused the death of Javier Ordóñez, in this last month of demonstrations in Bogotá, only two deaths are being investigated that could have some relation to the mobilizations.

“We went from a September of indiscriminate use of firearms that caused ten homicides of young people, to a month of citizen protests in which the most reiterated and prominent fact of concern at this moment is the facial and ocular damage to 33 young people,” said the mayor in a press conference.

POLICE OFFICERS AND YOUTHS, THE MOST AFFECTED

Of those 33 young people, according to Lopez, eight are at risk of losing their sight completely.

Although the city has not been the epicenter of chaos and violence, the mayor acknowledged that “this does not mean that serious and unacceptable things have not happened that we recognize, that we are documenting here and we are going to have them sanctioned.”

She stressed that in the last four weeks of demonstrations, in which 775 protest activities have taken place in Bogotá, “we have had more policemen than civilians injured”, since 380 uniformed officers have been injured, 17 of them very seriously, while 361 civilians have been injured, five of them in a serious condition.

She also denounced that 15 policemen have been victims of attempted homicides, 14 of them were in an Immediate Attention Command (CAI) when a mob set fire to the place with them inside. Another uniformed officer was directly wounded in the face with a Molotov cocktail bomb.

“72% of all these acts and of the complaints we have received of alleged abuse of power or police abuse are concentrated in five points of the city,” detailed the mayor when clarifying that most of the demonstrations have passed peacefully. Still, at night there are confrontations between the protesters and the public forces.

RESPONSE FROM THE UN

For her part, representative Juliette de Rivero congratulated the authorities because “they have done everything possible to ensure that these demonstrations are peaceful, but warned that they are also concerned about “the excesses of force and the alleged violations that have been seen in recent weeks.”

“I want to salute the authorities who have used dialogue to de-escalate tensions, who have understood the young people, who have adjusted their responses to avoid such violence,” she added in highlighting the report delivered by the Mayor’s Office of Bogotá.

She stressed that it is essential that the authorities recognize the problems that occurred during the demonstrations and the excesses and human rights violations because that is the first step to seek solutions.

The demonstrations began four weeks ago against Colombian president, Iván Duque. According to official data, 19 deaths have been confirmed in relation to the protests out of the 43 reported to the authorities.