Event Summary
Throughout October 2025, the Congreso de los Pueblos (People’s Congress) — a social movement that brings together farmers, indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and other grassroots organisations — led multiple days of protest in cities and territories across the country. The demonstrations have included roadblocks, occupations of public buildings and demands for land, housing, ethnic rights, compliance with agreements and security against armed groups. At the same time, government and institutional authorities have in some cases claimed that the demonstrations have been infiltrated by criminal or paramilitary structures, or have characterised the protests as a source of disorder. This dual dynamic, the persistent mobilisation of communities and the criminalisation or stigmatisation of such protests, poses a crucial challenge to the full guarantee of the right to association, demonstration and citizen participation.
These demonstrations have taken place amid a climate of growing stigmatisation of social protest, with several official spokespeople and media outlets associating the demonstrations with disorder or armed infiltration. Despite statements by the UN and the Ombudsman’s Office defending the legitimacy of peaceful protest, the country still lacks a statutory law that clearly regulates the exercise of this right, leaving wide margins of discretion for the authorities and increasing the vulnerability of those who mobilise for social and territorial causes.