Massive and popular protests have taken the streets of Colombia daily, creatively and belligerently for over a month now. The demands for change and the demands to turn around the history of inequality, exclusion, corruption, and impunity have received such a level of repression and state violence at the hands of the police that “they are massacring us” and “SOSColombia” have become the phrases that reflect this historical moment. National and international human rights organizations, as well as international governments, reiterate their concern and call on the government to suspend the repression, protect the citizen’s right to protest, advance in peaceful negotiations, and allow international organizations to investigate the crimes and complaints. The Colombian Democracy at the Crossroads urgent webinar aims to offer a historical, political, and legal look at the current moment in Colombia. We will listen to the voices of different protagonists inside and outside of Colombia to understand the possible solutions to the crisis. Either the varied democratic expressions of citizenship lead to a new Colombia, or the government strengthens its concentration of power and continues to reject popular petitions, repress protest, and institutionalize a dictatorship with more declarations of a “state of siege.”

The 90-minute webinar will be in English and Spanish with simultaneous subtitling.

Theme 1: What is happening on the ground? Voices from Colombia.
Theme 2: Contextualization and Analysis: the old, the new, and the future of Colombia’s democracy.
Theme 3: International Policy Implications.