Nationwide protests in Colombia in 2020-2021 were met with excessive use of force by police. Young people, many of them Afro-Colombian or Indigenous, were killed, wounded, and jailed.
Now the Petro administration, which took office in August 2022, has initiated police reforms to protect the right to protest and taken steps to address racial discrimination, most notably by advancing the Ethnic Chapter of the 2016 peace accords and launching a new Ministry of Equality and Equity.
Yet racial discrimination in law enforcement persists in the country. Last month, the Institute for Policy Studies, with the Congressional Progressive Caucus as honorary host, convened a briefing on the subject in the Rayburn House Office Building.
The briefing held was in partnership with Global Exchange, the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, and Washington Office on Latin America. It featured experts such as Alí Bantú Ashanti, who leads the Racial Justice Collective, a group of Afro-Colombian lawyers who joined to defend young people facing repression during protests. The Collective provides comprehensive care and legal support for victims while strengthening the power and resilience of Black communities.
Alí Bantú Ashanti, co-founder and director of the Racial Justice Lawyers Collective, is an Afro-Colombian lawyer born in Colombia’s Pacific Coast in Timbiquí, Cauca. He is an expert in strategic litigation, criminal defense, criminology, and constitutional law. Last December, Alí was appointed to serve as an Expert Commissioner for Justice Reform in Colombia by the Colombian government.
Other speakers were Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, Senior Associate for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America, and a representative of the Embassy of Colombia to the United States. The moderator was Lisa Haugaard, a consultant for the Latin America Working Group Education Fund and the Institute for Policy Studies.
Video of the event is now available below. (Alí Bantú Ashanti’s remarks are in Spanish and the others are in English.)