Support Colombian Women’s Rights Activist

Colombian authorities arrested women’s rights lawyer Paola Salgado Piedrahita last month in the city of Botoga. The Colombian government has charged her and 14 other individuals with trafficking and possession of explosives and violence after two explosions in the downtown core injured eight people.

Paola and the others are members of the People’s Congress, an activist group that promotes social movements in the country. Paola is a well-known women’s right lawyer who works for sexual and reproductive rights in Colombia. Paola has helped many women survivors of rape obtain abortions.

This past February Nobel Peace laureates Jody Williams and Shirin Ebadi led a delegation to Colombia. There they heard testimonies from women’s organizations regarding the increased rates of sexual violence against women resulting from the on-going civil conflict.

International and national organizations are outraged that there is no evidence to support these charges against Paola. They say the arrests were made by the government to limit the free expressions of activists in the country. La Mesa por el Derecho de las Mujeres a una Vida Libre de Violencias – Ley 1257 (The Bureau for the Right of Women to a Life Free of Violence-Act 1257) and La Corporación Humanas  (the Human Corporation) as well as a number of other national and international human rights organizations have called on the Colombian government for a fair trial and to ban taking actions that prevent activist work in the country, especially work that promotes women’s rights.