Being Watched Illegal Surveillance in Colombia and Implications for U.S. Assistance
The Center for International Policy, Peace Brigades International,
the Washington Office on Latin America, the US Office on Colombia,
and the Latin American Working Group Education Fund invite you to
Being Watched:
Illegal Surveillance in Colombia and
Implications for U.S. Assistance
Tuesday, October 25, 5 pm - 7 pm
Where: Washington Office on Latin America
Conference Room
1666 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20009
Featuring:
Hollman Morris - Colombian investigative journalist & NED Fellow
Luis Guillermo Pérez Casas, Member of the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective
Michael Evans, Director of the Colombia Documentation Project at
the National Security Archive
Jimena Reyes, Americas Representative of the International Human Rights Federation
Please contact Moira Birss at repusa2@pbicolombia.net or 202-518-0852 with any questions
The August publication of a Washington Post article alleging the use of U.S. aid in illegal surveillance and intimidation by Colombia’s presidential security agency, the Department of Administrative Security (DAS) against human rights defenders, investigative journalists, Supreme Court justices, opposition politicians, and even foreign NGOs and officials generated renewed attention to this political scandal and its wide-reaching implications. Please join us in hearing from four individuals who know about the issue firsthand, either as victims of the surveillance and intimidation, as lawyers pursuing an end to impunity for implicated DAS officials, or as researchers investigating the tangled web of DAS activities and U.S. assistance.
Hollman Morris is an accomplished investigative journalist who has spent most of his career covering Colombia’s internal armed conflict, with a particular focus on human rights issues. From 2003 to 2010, he directed the television program Contravía, whose shows continue to spotlight some of the most important human rights cases in Colombia. Mr. Morris has been a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University, as well as the recipient of numerous investigative journalism and human rights awards. In 2011, Mr. Morris co-directed the film “Impunity” (along with Juan José Lozano), which explores the impact of paramilitaries on Colombian politics and society. Mr. Morris is currently the Reagan Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, working on written report and video documenting instances of abuse and intimidation in Colombia.
Michael Evans is an analyst at the National Security Archive and director of the Colombia Documentation Project. He is editor of Colombia and the United States: Political Violence, Narcotics, and Human Rights, 1948-2010, consisting of more than 3,000 declassified documents on political violence and U.S. policy in Colombia. He is author of numerous Electronic Briefing Books on human rights and U.S. policy toward Colombia, including The Chiquita Papers, documenting the company’s illegal payoffs Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary groups. Evans has written columns for Semana and Verdad Abierta in Colombia, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald and across Colombia.
Luis Guillermo Pérez Casas has been a member of the renowned José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective in Bogotá, Colombia since 1998, and has served as Secretary General of the International Human Rights Federation for seven years. Mr. Perez Casas currently represents many of the victims in several cases related to DAS persecution, including former DAS officials Bernardo Moreno and María del Pilar Hurtado, as well as in an investigation in the Colombian House of Representatives against former president Álvaro Uribe. He also represents the victims in several landmark human rights cases, including the massacres in Mapiripán, Juan Carlos de Garoa, and others.
Jimena Reyes has been the Americas desk officer for the International Human Rights Federation since June 2003. She is a lawyer with the Paris Bar. She holds a Bachelor of Law from King’s College London, a Maîtrise de droit from the Panthéon Sorbonne and a Master in European studies from the College of Europe. She represents Chilean victims in cases before the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights. She has participated in several field missions on human rights violations in the Americas and has coordinated the drafting of many FIDH human rights reports, including “Europe, Diplomacy and Development” and “United States-Mexico Walls, Abuses, and Deaths at the borders”.
