By Oliver Griffin
BOGOTA, Nov 26 (Reuters) – More than 100 people in Colombia suffered eye damage from police during protests that rocked the South American country this year, human rights groups denounced in a report released Friday.
Protests against a government tax reform engulfed cities in Colombia since late April and lasted six weeks as protesters’ demands expanded to include a basic income and an end to police violence.
From April 28 to July 20 this year, at least 103 people suffered eye injuries caused by the police, according to a report by Amnesty International, the Colombian rights group Temblores and the Program of Action for Equality and Inclusion. Social of the University of the Andes.
Most of the injuries were intentional and caused by the dreaded ESMAD riot police, Amnesty said.
“It is chilling to see how the agents of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad have deliberately fired into the eyes of so many people, just for daring to exercise their legitimate right to peaceful demonstration,” Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty director for the Americas.
The Colombian National Police assures that the agents protect the right to peaceful protest and that those who commit abuses will be prosecuted. So far, 231 investigations have been opened against 69 uniformed men implicated in police violence during the protests.
Eye injuries caused by police wielding batons or firing less lethal projectiles during protests include 28 incidents in which the victim lost at least one eye or vision in one or both organs, according to data from Tremors and Amnesty video verification.
The report’s findings recall the intense protests in Chile in 2019 and 2020 where, according to the country’s human rights watchdog, 460 people suffered eye injuries, mainly due to tear gas canisters and rubber bullets fired by the policeman.
These injuries have a lasting impact on their victims.
Gareth Sella, 25, said he lost the vision in his left eye after being hit by a projectile fired by an ESMAD officer during a protest in Bogotá in February this year.
“A blast of markers is fired into my eye,” he said in an interview with Reuters.
Although she was not put off by further protests, Sella has embraced wearing sunglasses since the incident to avoid awkward questions and protect her right eye.
“It is a traumatic event, because it is not like an injury that happens playing soccer, but rather it is a state that shoots you,” he concluded. (Reporting by Oliver Griffin. Edited in Spanish by Luis Jaime Acosta and Marion Giraldo)