A/HRC/4/48
page 13
rights defenders and social leaders charged, without sufficient evidence, with the crime of
contempt of authority. Such cases occurred in Arauca, Norte de Santander and Bogotá.
According to the FLIP, eight journalists were arbitrarily arrested in 2006.
47.
The Ombudsman’s Office reported that children having no links with illegal armed
groups were kept for unauthorized periods in police stations, army battalions or Judicial Police
premises.
48.
Enforced disappearance is often inadequately and inaccurately recorded, since it
frequently leads to investigations of other crimes, such as ordinary abduction or murder, and
generally becomes known long after the event. Many of the disappearances which occurred in
previous years and were revealed in 2006 were attributed to members of paramilitary groups; the
victims were mostly peasants, although two trade union members and a political adviser in
Bogotá were also among the victims. The departments most affected by this practice were
Antioquia, Meta and Putumayo, as well as the city of Bogotá.
49.
The exhumation of remains in clandestine individual or mass graves is an important step
forward that has revealed the systematic practice of enforced disappearance by paramilitary
groups active in Sucre, Magdalena, Guajira, Norte de Santander and Putumayo, among other
areas. Because of the delays in handing over the remains to the families of the victims and the
firm conviction that new graves will be discovered, there is a need to reinforce the identification
teams with new human and material resources. Likewise, it is essential that investigations prior
to exhumations be strengthened, in order to increase the possibility of identifying the bodies and
punishing the perpetrators.
50.
The High Commissioner considers it encouraging that the entities making up the National
Commission on the Search for Missing Persons have now completed the National Search Plan,
which will be published in 2007. Similarly, the State initiative to create a single system for
recording information on missing persons and corpses is a positive development that must be
strengthened through an adequate methodology that includes the commitment to keep rigorous
records of unidentified corpses, and the development of provisions and procedures for the
handling and storage of such corpses.
51.
The right to personal integrity was affected by torture, ill-treatment and excessive use of
force attributed to public servants.
52.
According to the complaints received, in some cases torture was associated with
extrajudicial execution, and in others it was inflicted on detainees in prisons or police stations.
Information was also received about the torture of soldiers by their superiors.
53.
The Office continued to receive complaints about the excessive use of force. Some of
them referred to acts by members of the Police Mobile Anti-riot Squad in Nariño and Valle. The
Office also recorded ill-treatment of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons by the
police and prison officers in Bogotá, Cali and Bucaramanga. In the cities of Bogotá and
Medellín and in the Department of Valle, progress was made in the policy for the protection of
the rights of these persons.
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