Pain for Orlando
One day, a rumor arrives at your door: 50 people have been killed in a gay club in Orlando and your first reaction is disbelief. When you can see with your own eyes that which seems a horror story, you ask yourself questions full of sorrow.
Read MoreRestitution, Cabal, and Kafka
Neither the land restitution jurisdiction, nor the complaintants who Cabal calls “lazy criminals that don’t like to work,” nor much less the vulnerable rural workers that occupy the requested pieces of land.
Read MoreHunger and Obesity: Two Faces of Inequality
Hunger and obesity are avoidable in today’s world. They are the result of political decisions that States have made regarding the production, commercialization, and distribution of food.
Ali and Pelé
Sports fans like myself who grew up in the 70s were all fans of the sports kings of that time: Pelé and Muhammad Ali.
Read MoreThe Summit of Social Mobilization
“Let’s go people damnit, the people don’t give up damnit” was sung for more than ten days during the Rural Workers and Ethnic Communities Summit.
Read MorePaying to Disobey
The Council of Bogotá recently approved a bill that would allow citizens to avoid the alternate-day travel system for the sum of approximately four million pesos per year. In short, the measure allows people to buy an exception so that they do not have to obey.
Read MoreTaking Protests Seriously
The poor debate about the current rural worker and ethnic communities strike shows that we still do not take social movements seriously. The blindspot is not only Santos’– “such strike does not exist,” he said during the marches in 2013– it extends to the media, the state, and the academy.
Read MoreInvisible and Vulnerable Migrants
To read this post in English click here.
Hundreds of migrants travel invisibly through Latin America toward the United States and confront regressive migration policies in our continent.
IACHR: Crisis and Opportunity
The Inter-American Commision on Human Rights (IACHR) has been fundamental in the struggle for democracy in Latin America. In many cases it has been the only institution to which victims of violations could turn to when they found no response in their own countries, like the families of those that were forcefully disappeared by the Argentine and Chilean dictatorships, or the victims of political persecution in Venezuela, or the censored journalists in Ecuador. And IACHR has also played an essential role in crucial moments, like the resistance of Peruvians against Fujimori’s dictatorship or the investigation about the missing Mexican students of Ayotzinapa.
Read MoreCaptured Academy
A few weeks ago the Human Sciences School of the National University paid homage to a group of profesors for their academic accomplishments. Among them was the sociologist Miguel Ángel Beltrán, who, as public opinion knows, was removed by the General Solicitor’s Office, accused of collaborating with the FARC, and later convicted on appeal by the Superior Court of Bogotá.
Read MoreEnvironmental Injustice and Social Movements
The Warsaw Summit failed. The sobs and the hunger strike of the representative of the Philippines were not enough. “It’s time to end this madness,” he told the stubborn leaders of the world, referring to global warming which exacerbated the effects of the Haiyan typhoon that destroyed his family.
Read MoreProgressive Winds Blow In from Administrative Law
Administrative Law judges and the justices of the State Council may be innovating their way of protecting the public interest and of promoting regulation.
Read MoreEquity and Hospital Infections
A recent State Council decision established that if a patient gets an infection in a hospital, the hospital has to compensate him or her unless the hospital can prove that the infection was acquired elsewhere.
Read MoreRemembering our Brothers and Sisters: November 20th, Transgender Day of Remembrance
The fact that 64% of transgender persons in Bogota suffer some sort of aggression because of their gender identity shows that we need to exchange our prejudices for respect and comprehension.
Read MoreOnline education and the Classroom Dictatorship
Why do professors insist on teaching the same course over and over? When did teaching became “lecturing”?
Read MoreThe Missing Persons of the Palace of Justice and the IACHR
It is contradictory for the Government to accept responsibility before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (ICHR) for two of the disappearances at the Palace of Justice and for the torture of two of the detainees, but then try to minimize its responsibility with regard to the other nine missing persons or the execution of Clerk Urán, by saying that what happened was a merely a governmental failure, but not a disappearance or execution.
Read MoreMore Salt Rubbed in the Wounds of the Victims of the Palace of Justice
In the Palace of Justice hearing, the government representatives gave with one hand what they took with the other.
Read MoreThe Inspector’s General’s Crusade Against the Environment
Thanks to information sent by several readers, I see that my last column fell short in criticizing the pressure that the Inspetor General’s office asserts on public officers protecting the environment
Read MoreWas the Health Reform the Victim of a Stampede?
In his Treaty on Probability (1920) and the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1937) John Maynard Keynes made a fundamental distinction between the notion of “risk” and “uncertainty.”
Read MoreThe National University is Really in Crisis
The fact that more than half of the buildings of the main public university in Colombia are at high risk of vulnerability and four percent of them are in imminent risk of collapse generates indignation.
Read More