The plenary sessions of the Chamber and the Senate approved a controversial bill to strengthen citizen security, which was proposed by the Government to toughen the sentences against those who repeat crimes against citizens and which is described by the opposition as an initiative that criminalizes protest.
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The Interior Minister, Daniel Palacios, explained that the law seeks to give “Greater tools for judges to punish violent people who disturb their tranquility.”
“It also intends to aggravate the behaviors that affect all citizens and that the offender always goes to jail and not to the street”, added.
As an example of the scope of the project, Palacios said that the idea is that “When a person is at home or in his room and someone enters violently, it is presumed that that person by defending himself is acting in personal defense” Y “The judge will have to assess the proportionality test corresponding to the action that person has done.”
“Here what we are establishing as a mandatory criterion for the judge is that when this crime has been committed with a firearm, with a knife or with a weapon of reduced lethality, the judge has to give the measure of intramural assurance (in a jail)”, he detailed.
CRITICISM OF THE OPPOSITION
Senator Iván Cepeda, from the leftist Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA), considers that what was approved is “A compendium of provisions that legalize official, paramilitary and private criminal practices. It is a license to kill; a new aberration of the fascist court of this government ”.
That is why he, along with 18 other congressmen, sent a letter to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) so that “Verify the government’s failure to comply with its recommendations regarding respect for social protest.”
The protests this year in Colombia, which began with a tax reform proposal and lasted for more than five weeks, gradually losing intensity, had reports of serious human rights violations., especially abuse of police force and some episodes of vandalism and armed civilians shooting at protesters.
Disappearances, sexual abuse, blockades and homicides were also reported, the number of which differs depending on the source consulted.
EFE
