Closer links could be forged between solicitors and lawyers in Colombia following the visit to London of a prominent human rights lawyer from the conflict-ridden South American country.

The City of Westminster and Holborn Law Society announced it is looking at ways to support human rights lawyers in Colombia after the president of the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective (CAJAR) in Bogota told UK lawyers of the systematic persecution of human rights defenders in her country.


Addressing an international seminar held at the opening of the legal year, Soraya Gutiérrez Aguello said CAJAR lawyers and other human rights defenders in Colombia continually faced the danger of arrest, murder, harassment and threats to themselves and their families because of the work they do. Figures confirmed by the United Nations showed that 26 lawyers were murdered in Colombia in 2004 alone.


Ms Gutiérrez Aguello pointed the finger at organs of the state, such as the police, army and state security forces, as well as private individuals who were supported or protected by public servants or who acted in collusion with them.


Earlier this year Ms Gutiérrez Aguello, who is married and has a seven-year-old daughter, received a package containing a beheaded doll covered with red nail varnish resembling blood, that bore the message 'You have a beautiful family - take care of them; don't sacrifice them.'


She said the pressures had escalated because of CAJAR's support for the victims' movement and its opposition to the new Justice and Peace Law, which gives greater impunity to the perpetrators of atrocities without providing any reparation or justice to victims or their families.


Ms Gutiérrez Aguello said the precarious situation for lawyers was aggravated by the lack of a professional institution, such as the Law Society, to represent or protect them.


She added: 'The government has stated on several occasions that human rights defenders are enemies of the state, "using politics in the service of terrorism" and "defenders of terrorism".'


She urged lawyers in the UK to make representations to their government to monitor the human rights situation in Colombia and to denounce the persecution of lawyers there.