Rights groups on Wednesday urged the UN Human Rights Council, meeting in Geneva, to condemn the “brutal oppression” of protesters in Colombia and seek an independent investigation.
Colombian law enforcement, they said in a joint declaration, “continue committing serious and widespread human rights violations” two months into a popular protest movement against the government.
The document was issued in the name of hundreds of rights groups in Colombia and around the world.
It denounced dozens of killings by police and armed civilians acting “with the complicity of law enforcement officials,” as well as more than 3,000 arbitrary detentions of protesters — many of them subjected to torture and other ill-treatment.