Mark Durkan – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Durkan on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to his Colombian counterpart on the number of Colombian human rights defenders assassinated in the last six months.

Mr Hugo Swire

Human rights continue to be an integral part of our dialogue and relationship with Colombia. We remain concerned by the number of threats that continue to be made against human rights defenders (HRDs) in Colombia and I raised the issue of human rights with the Colombian Deputy Foreign Minister, Patti Londoño, on 29 September 2015 during the UN General Assembly.

Although the number of HRDs murdered fell by a third between 2013 and 2014, threats and assassinations continue. Colombian non-governmental organisation Somos Defensores reports 32 murders and 332 threats from January to July of 2015. Our Embassy is supporting a project on collective protection measures for HRDs in rural areas through our Human Rights and Democracy Fund and regularly raises concerns about the violence and intimidation suffered by human rights defenders in Colombia with the Colombian government. In his last meeting before leaving Post, the then British Ambassador met the Colombian Interior Minister on 5 August 2015 and raised a number of human rights cases of concern. We continue to monitor the situation closely.