Article Link: https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2020\/11\/24\/inmates-killed-in-colombia-riot-shot-intentionally-hrw-report <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In March, towards the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, prisoners at Colombia’s La Modelo prison were concerned for their health. The prison put six prisoners in each cell, many were sleeping in hallways, and there was no effort to separate those who tested positive from those who tested negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In what activists called a “peaceful protest” and what the prison called an “attempted escape,” 24 inmates were shot and killed. While the prison stated that they were aiming to injure, the autopsy reports that just came out show that every one of the 24 inmates was shot with the objective of killing them. No one has been charged with the deaths, and the prison doesn’t seem very interested in continuing an investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With these recent reports have come a slew of questions from the global community. The article states that, “According to international human rights law, governments must protect the lives of those in custody and quickly investigate any deaths.” The UN has spoken up about Colombia’s prisons as well as prisons throughout Latin America and has expressed concerns about their poor conditions and lack of interest in pursuing a thorough investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Due to concerns about the pandemic, these riots have been occurring in many prisons throughout Latin America, and the Humans Rights Watch is worried that many prisons aren’t following international human rights law. Corruption and violence, which is prevalent in many of these countries’ governments, also trickles down to their prison systems. In many ways, the pandemic has brought many of these issues to light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is already a lot of hope in the fact that global organizations like the The Independent Forensic Expert Group and the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims were willing to perform autopsies and conduct observations when the Colombian government didn’t have the intention of doing so. Hopefully this awareness and scrutiny of prison systems in Latin America continues with the intention of protecting the lives of the prisoners at all costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This story connects with what we’ve been learning in class through the collective goods problem. While protecting the lives of prisoners is a common good, Colombia’s national interests include wanting to be perceived as a strong, sovereign government. Because continuing these investigations would undermine the way that they govern their people and highlight their corruption, they prefer to cover up the deaths and try their best to move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fortunately for the families of the prisoners, IGOs like the UN and NGOs like the groups that performed the autopsies, have a vested interest in justice and preserving the lives of inmates. The checks that these groups have taken on the Colombian government can be used to prove that we are living under the realist perspective. The world is in a state of anarchy, and the only source of structure is sovereign states, who have varying levels of power in the global arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Article Link: https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2020\/11\/24\/inmates-killed-in-colombia-riot-shot-intentionally-hrw-report In March, towards the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, prisoners at Colombia’s La Modelo prison were concerned for their health. The prison put six prisoners in each cell, many were sleeping in hallways, and there was no effort to separate those who tested positive from those who tested negative. In what activists called a “peaceful protest” and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4361,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4360\/revisions\/4361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}