Urgent Action: Prominent Colombian Sociologist Assassinated

September 17th 2004, Barranquilla, Colombia

The Association of Colombian University Students ACEU), the Union for Colombian University Workers (SINTRAUNICOL) and participating organizations in the human rights campaign "So that the University can live in Colombia" denounce before the national and
international community, the assassination of professor and researcher ALFREDO CORREA DE ADREIS on the 17th of September 2004 in the city of Barranquilla, Colombia.

Alfredo Correa de Aldreis was a prominent and respected academic in the North of Colombia, an engineer and sociologist, professor in the University of the North and the Simón Bolivar University and Vice Chancellor of the University of the Magdelena. He had
carried out various investigations into forced displacement, an acute problem in the region.

Mr. Correa de Aldreis had previously been detained on the 17th of June of this year (2004) in a joint operation by the Procurator Fiscal and the Department of Security Administration (DAS) on a charge of rebellion. He was later released with no charge due to lack of evidence. This singling out by State authorities of Mr. Correa de Aldreis seriously compromised his personal security by making clear to other armed groups that while officially nothing could be done to silence him it was unlikely that if something were to happen to him that there would be any official recriminations.

This crime is part of the systematic repression against the Colombian University Community in an attempt to silence the dissenting voices of students, academics and administrative staff. The university is a place where freedom of expression, social criticism and research into solutions to the Country's problems should flourish cannot continue being victim to the violations of human rights which aim to eliminate opposition.

We demand:


* A comprehensive investigation to uncover and bring to justice the material and intellectual authors of this crime.

* The development of mechanisms to guarantee the physical safety of the Colombian University Community

* That the constitutional rights of assembly, protest, of freedom of thought and of expression are guaranteed in practice as they are on paper.

* That the State put a stop to and to explain the reasons for, the systematic repression of the Colombian University Community which has cost the lives of some 65 students, professors and administrative staff over the past ten years.

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