Arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and possible criminalization against Johan Sebastián Moreno Castro
On 5 May 2021, human rights defender Johan Sebastián Moreno Castro was released from the Immediate Reaction Unit (URI) of the Attorney General's Office in Bucaramanga after being arbitrarily detained and ill-treated by police officers for more than 10 hours. The defender’s detention occurred in the context of the ongoing national strike against a tax reform promoted by the government of President Iván Duque and against police brutality in Colombia.
Johan Sebastián Moreno Castro is a human rights defender and lawyer member of the Equipo Jurídico Pueblos (Pueblos Legal Team) of Buracamanga, Santander. The Pueblos Legal Team of the city of Bucaramanga was created in 2007 and works since then in favour of the defence of territories, against impunity of state crimes and for the freedom of political prisoners promoting an approach to the defence of rights. The legal team supports the work of workers, peasants, students, women, indigenous people and Afro-descendants, who seek the transformation of society in Colombia.
On 5 May 2021, human rights defender Johan Sebastián Moreno Castro was released from the Immediate Reaction Unit (URI) of the Attorney General's Office in Bucaramanga after being arbitrarily detained and ill-treated by police officers for more than 10 hours. The defender’s detention occurred in the context of the ongoing national strike against a tax reform promoted by the government of President Iván Duque and against police brutality in Colombia.
Johan Sebastián Moreno Castro is a human rights defender and lawyer member of the Equipo Jurídico Pueblos (Pueblos Legal Team) of Buracamanga, Santander. The Pueblos Legal Team of the city of Bucaramanga was created in 2007 and works since then in favour of the defence of territories, against impunity of state crimes and for the freedom of political prisoners promoting an approach to the defence of rights. The legal team supports the work of workers, peasants, students, women, indigenous people and Afro-descendants, who seek the transformation of society in Colombia.
On 4 May 2021, Johan Sebastián Castro was violently and arbitrarily detained while he was mediating and talking to demonstrators that minutes earlier had been tear-gassed by officers from the Metropolitan Police of Bucaramanga in Piedecuesta. The police officers threw the defender to the ground and hit him in the head with a grenade and them hit him several times with their shields and a helmet. Videos show that when the police officers proceeded to arrest him his head was bleeding. At the time of the arrest, the officers argued that they were attacked by the defender and therefore he was being taken into custody. Johan Sebastián Castro reported that during his transfer to the police station he was physically and psychologically abused and threatened by police officers trying to make him testify against himself. The defender was handed over to the Piedecuesta Police Station where he remained several hours incommunicado and handcuffed to a chair in an open courtyard before being transferred to the local Hospital of Piedecuesta around 10.00 pm where his wounds were sutured, the defender was later transferred to the URI of the Attorney General's Office in Bucaramanga around midnight where police officers tried to make him testify that there were no ill-treatments during his detention which he refused.
Johan Sebastián Castro was once again transferred to the Piedecuesta Police Station where police officers attacked him verbally and refused to let him use the toilette or to drink water until the morning when he was finally transferred the Attorney General's Office in Bucaramanga to be released two hours later. In the morning of 5 May 2021, a Specialized Prosecutor of The General Attorney of Bucaramanga granted the defender with an Habeas Corpus and determined that Johan Sebastián Moreno Castro had been illegally detained by the security forces and was therefore released after finding no elements or evidence for the crime of violence against any public officers, however, his file was sent to a local prosecutor in Piedecuesta and his colleagues fear there might be a criminalization attempt behind this action for the fabricated crimes of “attacks against an authority”.
After being released Johan Sebastián Moreno Castro went to the Medical Forensics where doctors determined he several presented injuries including a 4 cm wound in his head and wounds in his arm as a result of the violent nature of his arbitrary arrest and the way he had been handcuffed in the Police Station.
Front Line Defenders condemns the arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of human rights defender Johan Sebastián Moreno Castro, as it believes he has been criminalised and mistreated solely as a result of his peaceful activities in defence of human rights in the city of Bucaramanga. Front Line Defenders is deeply worried about the ill-treatment of the defender and other detainees in the context of the national strike in Colombia, such detentions as the one carried out against Johan Sebastián Moreno Castro have an intimidating effect on the community of human rights defenders and civil society in the country, particularly those who continue to document and denounce the crisis during the national strike.
