CIVICUS discusses a recent ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) on the rights of human rights defenders with Jomary Ortegón, a human rights lawyer and vice-president of the Lawyers’ Collective José Alvear Restrepo (CAJAR), a Colombian organisation dedicated to the defence and promotion of human rights.
In March 2024, the IACtHR held Colombia legally responsible for the systematic violation of the human rights of several CAJAR members and their families, who were subjected to years of persecution, harassment, stigmatisation and surveillance. In 2002, CAJAR and the Centre for Justice and International Law took the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which in 2020 took it to the Inter-American Court. This is the first time a human rights organisation has appeared as a victim before the regional court. The Court upheld the right to defend human rights and ordered reparations.
What human rights violations did you report to the IACtHR?
CAJAR complained about more than 100 acts of harassment and threats, including surveillance, threatening leaflets and intimidating phone calls. As a result, several members of the collective were forced into exile in the 1990s. But the army, the national police and the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), the intelligence agency, continued to harass CAJAR members and their families until 2010, when DAS was disbanded. In 2009, the media reported that DAS had developed a huge intelligence operation, Transmilenio, with CAJAR one of the targets. The operation included surveillance, interception of communications, sabotage and smear campaigns.
Many of the attacks specifically targeted women. For example, CAJAR’s president at the time, Soraya Gutiérrez, received a doll smeared with red enamel on various parts of its body along with the message: ‘You have a beautiful family, don’t sacrifice it’. As with most of the reported incidents, threats, surveillance and harassment against her and her family haven’t been properly investigated and remain unpunished.
What was the legal process like, and what challenges did you face?
In 2002, we filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which issued its admissibility report in 2006. In December 2013, we submitted our pleadings and provided much of the evidence. But the Commission took a long time to prepare its merits report, which it didn’t publish until 2019 and sent to the Court a year later. In the meantime, the attacks continued.
We identified 100 victims, but the Court identified only 28. During the proceedings, however, the Court acknowledged a material error in the non-inclusion of some victims. We also requested the application of an article of the Court’s Rules of Procedure that allows for the identification of additional victims in the case of collective or mass violations. The Court acknowledged that CAJAR hadn’t had access to all the intelligence information collected by DAS between 2002 and 2005, so its ruling allowed for the possibility of identifying new victims.
Lack of access to illegally collected intelligence was a major challenge. We were only able to access part of it thanks to ongoing criminal proceedings. The IACtHR requested this information from the Colombian state, which argued it wasn’t accessible. In 2019, a media outlet revealed that an illegal operation was carried out by a cyber intelligence battalion, which could involve information about CAJAR members, but we were unable to access it. Even investigative bodies have refused us access.
What did the Court find?
The IACtHR judgment establishes that the Colombian state, under five governments, carried out illegal intelligence operations against legitimate work to defend human rights. It identified several stages in this process. The 1990s were characterised by the use of threats, harassment, physical attacks and killings in retaliation for human rights work. In the 2000s, this was compounded by the stigmatisation of human rights defenders by high-ranking officials, including the president. Finally, from the 2010s, there was the failure to respect the Peace Accords, which led to the presence of new armed groups throughout Colombia. Those most affected were activists defending nature, land and territory and the rights of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples.
This IACtHR ruling is the first to have established state responsibility for violations of the right to defend rights. The Court recognised the violation of 14 rights and ordered 16 reparation measures, including measures of economic compensation, rehabilitation and satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition. Several of these have collective implications. For instance, the state will have to officially designate a day to commemorate human rights defenders. The Court established that on this day, educational activities should be carried out in public educational centres to help people appreciate human rights defenders’ work.
It also ordered the creation of a register of risk situations for human rights defenders, which would be used to measure levels of violence and develop strategies to prevent and eradicate new aggressions. This should be accompanied by a national information campaign to raise awareness of persecution, stigmatisation and violence against human rights defenders and the importance of pluralism in a democracy. The aim of this campaign will be to deconstruct stigmatising narratives that fuel violence. This campaign should be accompanied by another that targets public officials.
The Court also ordered the creation of a fund for the protection and support of human rights defenders at risk.
The judgment defines the limits of intelligence operations in a democracy and recognises a new right to ‘informational self-determination’, which consists of the right to access information held by the state and to request its release, correction or deletion.
IACtHR rulings are final and not subject to appeal, so the state must begin implementing these measures immediately and is expected to submit its first progress report within a year. All measures must be agreed with beneficiaries and their representatives. Given that Congress is not very functional, it can be expected that implementation of measures requiring legislative changes will be a major challenge.
What are the implications of the ruling?
Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for human rights defenders. Since the signing of the peace agreement with FARC guerrillas in 2016, at least 1,200 human rights defenders have been killed.
In this context, the IACtHR decision will have an immediate positive impact in terms of recognising the importance of human rights work and its impact on social and political life.
The ruling specifies the general obligations of the state to respect, protect and guarantee the rights of human rights defenders. It calls for specific measures – legislative reforms, training of public officials, and procedures for investigation, prosecution and punishment – that should have a positive impact on creating a more favourable environment for human rights defenders. It’s to be hoped these commitments will be translated into human rights-based public policies with an ethnic and gender perspective.
Finally, the decision sends a message to all public officials in Colombia and the region. It tells them not only what their obligations are, but also what the consequences of their actions and omissions could be.
Civic space in Colombia is rated ‘repressed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with CAJAR through its website or its Facebook and Instagram pages, and follow @Ccajar and @Jomary_O on Twitter.
