Maria Cedeño
How will there peace if we still have impunity? How can we believe in the process if our children are still missing, our husbands are still missing, and we have not yet convicted people have killed?
Maria Cedeño is a member of the Comité de Solidaridad con los Presos Políticos – CSPP (Political Prisoner's Solidarity Committee). CSPP is one of the founder organizations of the Colombian Coalition against Torture, and provides legal assistance to prisoners and detainees whose rights have been violated.
Despite recent peace talks, Colombia remains one of the countries with the highest rates of killing of HRDs in the world. The UN reported that 69 HRDS were killed between January and August 2015 - the number was 35 for the same period in 2014. HRDs are subjected to threats, intimidation, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, physical assaults, torture, killings, illegal searches of their homes and offices and stigmatisation as a result of their activities in defence of human rights. The perpetrators of these abuses are frequently paramilitary groups, many of whom have links to the government or security services, or armed opposition groups.
