By: International Socialist League
Early on March 4, University of Antioquia professor and Asoproudea (Association of Professors of the University of Antioquia) secretary Sara Fernández Moreno, was attacked at her home with a knife that pierced her lung and is now hospitalized.
As the ISL denounced, the fascist group Gaitanista Autodefensas de Colombia disseminated a death threat in Medellín on Monday, March 2, addressed to various university organizations and activists, including the Asoproudea union to which Fernández belongs and comrades from the Colombian section of the ISL.
The March 2 threat was the third of its kind in a year that involves our comrades, and the attempt on Fernández’s life represents a dangerous leap in these paramilitary gangs´ activity. This cowardly and criminal action feeds on the politics of persecution and intimidation sustained by Iván Duque´s national government and local governments like Medellín mayor Daniel Quintero Calle´s against the student movement, which has been the protagonist of a year of great struggles in defense of education and against neoliberal government policies, and a historic general strike in unity with the Colombian working class.
We hold Duque´s national government, Quintero Calle´s municipal government and Antioquia University authorities responsible for the safety of Fernández and of all threatened activists. We demand the trial and punishment of the material and intellectual authors of the attack against Fernández and that all fascist threats be investigated.
We redouble our international campaign of solidarity with the threatened Colombian organizations and activists and call on all human rights organizations, trade unions and student organizations, left-wing and democratic organizations and individuals to repudiate the fascist attacks and threats, and to surround the Colombian comrades with solidarity.