The meeting was in the context of the “Protest Hub: Emergency Assistance in Protests,” a project on which we collaborate with a network of different social organizations in the region to provide protection, legal assistance and public visibility in cases where social protest has been subject to repression and criminalization during the pandemic and post-pandemic period.
Colleagues from Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico participated in the meeting, where we discussed the scenarios in each country, the threats and persecution of those who protest. We analyzed problems common throughout the region, such as the extended use of supposedly less-lethal weapons, the differential impacts of repression on women and LGTBIQ+ persons and forms of police violence toward Afro-descendent and Indigenous persons. We shared experiences and defense strategies for protesters and leaders of social organizations, and debated the exercise of protest as a space for demanding and winning new rights in the wake of the recent cases of Chile and Colombia.