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Death Threats and Attacks Against Community Leader and Human Rights Defender, Juan Martinez

Updated: May 19, 2020


Community Leader and Human Rights Defender, Juan Martinez

Read Original Spanish Version Here


On the morning of May 11th, social leader, human rights defender and member of the board of directors of the CONPAZ Network, JUAN EVANGELISTO MARTINEZ GARCÍA, was threatened. The threat was made via phone, as his father received a suspicious call in which they stated: "Your son is already a dead man" and then hung up, the number and identity of the callers is unknown.

The previous day, on May 10th, at approximately 7:00 pm, in the Las Nubes village JUAN MARTINEZ and his father, were the object of an attack by an unknown person who tried to run them over on board a pickup truck.


JUAN MARTINEZ immediately called the police in the quadrant to identify him, but the attacker managed to escape.

Earlier this year, at a supermarket in the La Paz neighborhood in Barranquilla, the same subject approached JUAN MARTINEZ. The subject pushed him and assured him that he would end his life or the life of one of his children, before leaving the premises.

These events mark at least two threats and two attacks against JUAN MARTINEZ during the year 2020, who, in addition to his human rights work, is a land claimant himself and has been denouncing damages caused by private companies to the communities water source.


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