Juliette de Rivero, representative in Colombia of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged the international community and national authorities to strengthen the accompaniment of officials from the National Protection Unit (UNP).
“We urge the Attorney General’s Office to carry out an immediate, exhaustive investigation” of the death threats against the director of the National Protection Unit (UNP), Augusto Rodríguez Ballesteros, and his officials Daniel Augusto Jorge El Saieh and Israel Adalberto Franco and their families.
Through a statement through his Twitter account, he expressed his support for actions to “clean up corruption in the institution and improve services to protect human rights defenders in this country.”
After meeting with the director and the legal and disciplinary advisors of the UNP, who have been the target of the threats, the UN representative condemned this fact and asked the international community to reinforce the accompanying measures to the UNP.
“We absolutely deplore these death threats and condemn them. We want to call on the international community to reinforce all the support measures we have with UNP Colombia”.
The death threats were denounced by the director of the UNP, Augusto Rodríguez, who revealed that they reached his institutional email mentioning his daughter, the officials of the entity Daniel Augusto Jorge El Saieh and Israel Adalberto Franco, who are conducting investigations. criminal and disciplinary proceedings for “acts of corruption within and in the entity’s protective and contracting environment.”
The director of the UNP filed the complaint with the Attorney General’s Office and called on the members of the entity to close ranks against the violent and criminals.
On March 7, the director was the victim of an attack when he was returning to his residence at night.
