Universities’ Involvement in the Protection of Human Rights Defenders: How to Acknowledge and support their Struggle?

This paper concerns the involvement of Universities in supporting the role and the protection of human rights defenders. At the same time, it sheds light, through a case study, on how Universities themselves can face repression and how academics, students and teaching staff, can be victims of threats to their lives, liberty and well-being. This specific case is about the human rights violations occurred in Colombia from October to December 2018 in the framework of the national students’ protest, during the paro nacional in November 2019 and in the following period until the mass mobilisation against the government and inequalities that began on 28 April 2021, with young people in “primera línea”. A specific focus will be given to the case at the University of Cauca.