Article by PBI-Canada

On April 9, PBI-Colombia tweeted: “Today, PBI accompanied dhColombia with organizations of state victims in a sit-in in front of the Consulate of the European Union in Colombia within the framework of the National Day of Memory and Solidarity with Victims.”

Established in 2012, the National Day pays tribute to the estimated 6 million victims of violence in the Colombian Armed Conflict.

It also relates to more recent police violence.

The Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) explains in this tweet: “The victims of events committed by the security forces in Soacha and Bogotá hold a sit-in at the Consulate of the European Union demanding that the international community speak out against the murders of their relatives.”

And dhColombia tweeted: “Never forget, the Massacre of September 9, 2020 was a massacre committed by the State at the hands of the Colombian Police.”

Last September, at least fourteen people were killed and hundreds wounded (72 of them with gunshot wounds) while protesting in Bogotá and the satellite city of Soacha following the police killing of Javier Ordonez.

The death of Ordonez evoked memories of the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota given police pinned him to the ground with their knees as he cried “please, no more” and “I’m choking” in a video widely circulated on social media.

The BBC reported that hundreds of people clashed with officers outside the CAI, the police sub-station where Ordóñez died.

DHColombia tweeted at that time: “It is necessary to disarm the [CAI] centers of torture and sexual violence that they have become.”

Alejandra Garzón, a lawyer with dhColombia, speaks at the sit-in outside the EU Consulate. The button she is wearing appears to be of Nicolás David Neira, a 14-year-old killed by the ESMAD riot police during an International Labour Day mobilization in Bogota in 2005.