On November 9, UN Human Rights in Colombia tweeted: “Today we meet with the human rights defenders of the association @Nomadesc, finalist in @PremioNalDDHH from #DDHH [human rights]. The work of defense of #DDHH must be guaranteed.”
The website for the award notes, “Annually, and since 2012, the National Human Rights Defence Award celebrates the lives of women and men who work in the defense and promotion of human rights in Colombia.”
Those who are nominated “are leaders because they are defenders of life, of women, of children, of water, of territory, of natural resources, of common interest.”
The award is presented by Diakonia (an international, faith-based cooperation organization founded by Protestant churches in Sweden that is active in 30 countries around the world) and the Church of Sweden (an Evangelical Lutheran church with 6.1 million members, 3,500 churches and 13 dioceses in Sweden).
NOMADESC is noted among the 2021 listed here.
Ongoing work
PBI-Colombia also tweeted: “NOMADESC and Berenice Celeita receive a visit from @ONUHumanRights at their office. They recently denounced serious irregular acts by police officers for defending human rights in Colombia.”
The Amnesty International report Cali: In the Epicenter of Repression released on July 30 of this year noted: “Since 28 April 2021, in the city of Cali, capital of the department of Valle del Cauca in western Colombia, there have been mass demonstrations. At the same time, the gravest human rights violations and crimes under international law committed in the country in this period have been concentrated in this city.”
It further highlights: “Hundreds of reports and urgent appeals from local human rights organizations and complaints from victims and their families, many of which Amnesty International has been able to verify, detail the violent repression of young protesters on the streets of Cali at the hands of the security forces and armed civilians.”
Earlier this month, El Espectador reported: “[NOMADESC] director, Berenice Celeita, maintains that there was a coordinated plan from the institutionality [the Colombian state and the ESMAD riot police] for armed civilians to attack the different points of protest. None of the people who shot and blinded the lives of 82 young people in the Valley have been prosecuted or are in detention, she says.”
More context on that is at NOMADESC says police surveilled meeting with national strike participants victimized by state violence.
The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has accompanied NOMADESC since 2011 and its president Berenice Celeita since 1999.
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