Bogota mayor to press charges against union leader over protests – Colombia News

The mayor of Colombia’s capital Bogota, Carlos Fernando Galan, announced criminal charges against labor union leader Fabio Arias for his alleged involvement in the disruption of public transport during a national strike.

According to Galan, roadblocks that were set up in the west of the city and disrupted the services of mass transit system Transmilenio “are a strategy of those who organized” the protests in support of labor reforms on Wednesday and Thursday.

The mayor made these claims after Arias celebrated the roadblocks as “one of the many ways we have been carrying out this national strike” at an protest event on Bogota’s central Bolivar Square.

There have been two days of complete abnormality due to comrades in the localities who managed to block Transmilenio transportation. One of the many ways in which we came to carry out this national stoppage.

Fabio Arias

In a video that was posted on social media, Galan said Arias “openly confessed having summoned actions that could constitute violations of the Colombian penal code.”

The blockades of Transmilenio were not an isolated event but rather a deliberate action by those who called the strike to affect the rights of the people. Basically, to screw the people. That is why, based on this confession, tomorrow Bogota will file a complaint, so that justice will be the one to determine this responsibility.

Carlos Fernando Galan

In a response, the leader of the Unitarian Workers Central labor union told W Radio that roadblocks are ‘legitimate” forms of protests as long as they don’t threaten anyone’s life.

“Roadblocks are a form of social protest, this is in the protocols of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights and the International Labor Organization,” Arias told the radio station.

The labor union leader accused Galan of trying to criminalize the protests after allowing excessive police violence in response to the roadblocks.