Colombia: fear for safety / extrajudicial execution: Javier Alberto Barriga Vergel, human rights lawyer
There are renewed fears for the safety of human rights defenders in Cucuta city, Norte de Santander, after the killing of lawyer Javier Alberto Barriga Vergel on 16 June 1995. The dead man was a member of the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers' Collective (CCA), working for the Committee of Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP), in Cucuta. The CSPP is working on numbers cases of where members of the security forces are implicated in abuses. Its lawyers have reportedly received repeated death threats and have been harassed and attacked.