Please send an email to Colombian authorities to demand safety for Darnelly Rodgriguez and for all human rights defenders with REDDHFIC!

We share the following news with great alarm. Darnelly Rodriguez is a Colombian human rights worker in Cali who is closely connected with the Alliance for Global Justice. For the second time in a year, she has had to relocate because of threats against her life. Darne is the coordinator for the Cali chapter of the Francisco Isaías Cifuentes Human Rights Network (REDDHFIC), and she also coordinates the Pacific Center for Human Rights (Centro Pazifico). Darne is a high profile human rights defender and has been a target of a series of threats over the past year. The region where she works is an area with the highest concentration of political violence and forced displacement in the country.

We at AFGJ have known and worked with Darnelly Rodriguez since 2016. Darne is the coordinator for REDDHFIC in Cali, an office that serves the Department of Valle de Cauca, and the northern part of the Department of Cauca. REDDHFIC is an organization of grassroots human rights defenders primarily from peasant farming, indigenous, and Afro-Colombian communities.

Additionally, Darne is the coordinator for the Centro Pazifico, based in Cali. The center provides offices for social movements, space for meetings and education, and lodging for people forcibly displaced by political violence, as well as for international human rights accompaniment. The Centro Pazifico is a joint effort run by a collective representing (from Colombia) REDDHFIC, the Cali chapter of CPDH (Permanent Committee for Human Rights), ASTRACAVA (Valle de Cauca Association of Rural Workers), ASTRAZONAC (Association of Peasant Zone Workers), CONAFRO (National Coordination of Afro-descendent Organizations and Communities), and CONPI (National Coordination of Indigenous Peoples), and (from the United States) the Alliance for Global Justice and Camino Común.

Darnelly Rodriguez is a critically important activist in Colombia’s popular movements for peace, justice, liberation, and participatory democracy. We urge all our followers to take action today to help Darne stay safe and continue her important work for the people of Colombia.