Break-in at workplace and threats against Malena Martínez
On 19 October 2018, the workplace of woman human rights defender Malena Mariet Martínez Montoya in Sincelejo, Sucre, Colombia was broken into and ransacked. The office’s lock was broken, but nothing was stolen and the police found a note threatening the human rights defender. Malena Mariet Martínez Montoya filed a formal complaint before the National Prosecutor’s Office on 20 October 2018.
Malena Mariet Martínez Montoya is a member of the Sucre branch of the Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado (National Movement of Victims of State Crimes – MOVICE). MOVICE is a coalition of more than 200 human rights organisations which monitors human rights violations committed in the context of the armed conflict and calls for state agents and paramilitaries to be brought to justice. It promotes the rights of victims to truth, justice, and full reparation. Since its foundation in 2005, it has developed a presence in 15 departments of the country, including the department of Sucre.
On 19 October 2018, the workplace of woman human rights defender Malena Mariet Martínez Montoya in Sincelejo, Sucre, Colombia was broken into and ransacked. The office’s lock was broken, but nothing was stolen and the police found a note threatening the human rights defender. Malena Mariet Martínez Montoya filed a formal complaint before the National Prosecutor’s Office on 20 October 2018.
Malena Mariet Martínez Montoya is a member of the Sucre branch of the Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado (National Movement of Victims of State Crimes – MOVICE). MOVICE is a coalition of more than 200 human rights organisations which monitors human rights violations committed in the context of the armed conflict and calls for state agents and paramilitaries to be brought to justice. It promotes the rights of victims to truth, justice, and full reparation. Since its foundation in 2005, it has developed a presence in 15 departments of the country, including the department of Sucre.
In the afternoon of 19 October 2018, unknown individuals broke into Malena Mariet Martínez Montoya’s workplace, a dental clinic. The locks were broken and the place was ransacked, but nothing was taken. Instead, a threatening note was left, which read “Malena, you see that we can get to you” (Malena ya vez que podemos llegar hasta ti), signed by AGC1 Fuera Guerrillas. The police sent a forensic team which secured evidence of the break-in, including the threatening note. The human rights defender filed a formal complaint before the National Prosecutor’s Office on 20 October 2018.
It is not the first time that Malena Mariet Martínez Montoya is being targeted. She was granted precautionary measures by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2006, alongside Juan David Díaz Chamorro, Ingrid Vergara, and other members of MOVICE Sucre due to the multiple threats experienced by them. In June 2013, Malena Mariet Martínez Montoya, her husband and one other person linked to the family were informed of a plan to kill them. In 2018 alone, the defender received three threatening messages by phone, stating that she should stop accompanying victims of La Guaripa and that, if she does not comply, herself, her family and the victims would all be killed. Malena Martinez and other colleagues from MOVICE Sucre have been accompanying the La Guaripa case since January 2018, when three brothers were killed as a result of a land conflict.
This latest threat against Malena Mariet Martínez Montoya is part of a pattern of continued threats and intimidation aimed at members of MOVICE throughout the country. The organisation collected evidence of more than 130 serious threats and attacks against its members since its creation in 2006, including killings, attempted killings, break-ins, direct threats, threats to family members, as well as judicial harassment and prosecution, arrests and various forms of intimidation.
Colombia has seen an upsurge in the killing of human rights defenders since the peace agreement was signed in December 2016. Despite the Presidential Decree 2252 from 29 December 2017, which establishes obligations of local and regional governments to protect and implement security measures for human rights defenders, community and social leaders at risk, social leaders in rural areas of the country face continued targeted violence against them. According to reports of the Colombian organisation Somos Defensores, between January and June of 2018 272 threats, 77 killings, 23 attempted murders and four disappearances of human rights defenders were registered. As in previous years, the defenders most affected by the violence were community, campesino and indigenous leaders in rural areas, with a growing proportion in urban areas. Alleged perpetrators in most cases were paramilitary groups.
Front Line Defenders strongly condemns the break-in and threats against Malena Martínez. Front Line Defenders believes these attacks to be directly linked to the legitimate and peaceful work of Malena Martínez in the defence of the rights of victims of Colombia’s armed conflict.
1AGC: Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia is one of the largest paramilitary groups in Colombia.
