Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make representations to his Colombian counterpart on the security situation for human rights defenders in Colombia.
Following the change to date for answer of this PQ, I submitted a response by email on 26 March, with the following response. The Table Office have agreed this approach.
The United Kingdom remains concerned about the persistent level of violence towards human rights defenders in Colombia. We consistently raise these issues with the Colombian Government, and in multilateral fora, most recently at the UN Security Council on 13 January, and during President Duque's visit to the UK in June 2019. Our Embassy in Bogota also continues to raise concerns about specific communities with the relevant state actors in Colombia.