Miguel Uribe shot in Bogota, critical condition after campaign attack
A prominent Colombian right-wing presidential candidate is in critical condition after being shot three times during a campaign event in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said.
Thirty-nine-year-old Senator Miguel Uribe was speaking to supporters in the capital when a gunman shot him twice in the head and once in the knee
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NZ Herald
a day ago
- NZ Herald
LA unrest mirrors global protests: Government response under scrutiny
A strong government response to demonstrations that initially start peacefully, they say, often produces increasingly violent confrontations. In some instances, they add, leaders have used the prospect of civil unrest to use heavy-handed tactics or create pretexts to expand their grip on power. Here are three lessons from international protests, which experts say can help make sense of what is unfolding in Los Angeles. 1. Crackdowns shape optics, and optics shape uprisings. When states crack down on demonstrators, the images circulated online and in the news media of the resulting clashes shape the public's understanding of what is happening. Such optics, experts said, play a critical role in either bolstering or undermining the actions of a Government amid unrest. Harsh crackdowns may generate sympathy for protesters, said Omar Wasow, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley who studies protest movements. The 'spectacle of violence and repression,' he said, can frame states as 'bullies' unjustly squashing expression. But those images can also act like a 'double-edged sword,' Wasow said. When residents engage violently with the authorities, viral images – of burning cars or vandalised property, for example – can instead generate sympathy for the state. Because most people are not at the protests, the public's idea of the demonstrators can be coloured by the images of violence that gain the most traction, even if the events are largely peaceful. 'It's all about narrative,' said Laura Gamboa, an assistant professor of democracy and global affairs at the University of Notre Dame. To control their image in the face of state crackdown, movements need strong internal organisation, she added. But spontaneous uprisings often lack such organisation. Gamboa pointed to Honduras, where protests broke out after a disputed election in 2017. When peaceful protests turned violent, the movement struggled to 'overcome the narrative and gain the international support they needed'. Police officers control a crowd as people protest against the detention of migrants by federal law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles, June 9. Photo / Sinna Nasseri, The New York Times 2. Heavy-handed responses can lead to more violent protests. State repression inspires violence and increases the size of protests in general, said Gamboa, turning issue-based demonstrations into mass movements. 'You're being repressed; gas is thrown at you,' she said. 'It's your natural instinct to protect yourself by fighting back.' Beyond an immediate need to respond to violence, crackdowns inflame protests by broadening the cause to fight. What began, for instance, as opposition to the Colombian Government's tax overhaul in 2021 transformed into a much bigger campaign against police violence and the role of state force after a bloody crackdown on demonstrators. Aggressive state responses to protests led to as many as 300 deaths in Mozambique last year and hundreds of arrests in India in 2019 protests over a citizenship law. Sacramento police officers make an arrest during a protest against ICE raids in downtown Sacramento, California, on Monday, June 9. Photo / Andri Tambunan, The New York Times 3. Crackdowns can be stepping stones to wider power grabs. A Government's decision to exercise force, the experts said, can be an opening for authoritarians to erode democratic checks. Governments can violate norms to project power, said Andrew O'Donohue, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace who studies democratic backsliding. They can then use the 'pushback to justify further crackdowns on institutions and protests', he added. After protesters and police continually pushed the limits of what had been accepted tactics during a year of protests in Hong Kong, the mainland Government ended the cycle of increasing violence in 2020 by stripping the semi-autonomous territory of many of its rights. The Government in Beijing justified the passage that year of the National Security Law, which handed the mainland Government broad powers to crack down on political activities, effectively outlawing pro-democracy parties and limiting free speech. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Pranav Baskar Photographs by: Mark Abramson, Sinna Nasseri, Andri Tambunan ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
Colombia bomb attacks rock southwest, senator still critical after shooting
By Luis Jaime Acosta and Nelson Bocanegra , Reuters People pray outside the Fundacion Santa Fe clinic, where Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe is hospitalized after being shot during a political event in Bogota on 10 June, 2025. Photo: RAUL ARBOLEDA / AFP Colombia's violence took a new turn as a series of bomb attacks rocked the nation's southwest, while Senator Miguel Uribe continued fighting for his life days after being shot in the head during a campaign rally. The incidents have shaken the nation and harkened back to the decades of fear and violence residents lived under caused by armed guerrillas, paramilitary groups and drug traffickers. The explosions left at least seven people dead and more than 50 wounded, authorities said. While bomb attacks are not uncommon in Colombia, Tuesday's came on the heels of the assassination attempt on Uribe, a member of the opposition right-wing Democratic Center party and a potential presidential contender. Uribe, 39, was shot at a campaign event in a public park on Saturday in capital Bogota . He remains in critical condition, the hospital treating him said on Tuesday. "No family in Colombia should be going through this," Uribe's wife, Maria Claudia Tarazona, told reporters outside the hospital. "There is no name for this - it's not pain, it's not horror, it's not sadness." Authorities said on Monday that they were investigating several lines of inquiry in the motive for Uribe's shooting. A teen has been arrested, and President Gustavo Petro said the suspect had given his testimony to police. In a video of the teen's capture, independently verified by Reuters, he can be heard shouting that he had been hired by a local drug dealer. In an earlier video as the suspect, who had been wounded, attempted to escape the scene, a voice can be heard shouting, "I did it for the money, for my family." Reuters also verified the video. Senator Miguel Uribe. Photo: AFP/SEBASTIAN BARROS The suspect on Tuesday rejected charges of attempted murder and illegal possession of a firearm, the attorney general's office said. He faces up to eight years in a rehabilitation centre, not prison, as he is a minor. Petro has broadly pointed the finger at an international crime ring as being behind the attack on Uribe, without providing details or evidence. The explosions on Tuesday were likely caused by a guerrilla group that splintered from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, according to the army and police. Interior Minister Armando Benedetti suggested there may be a link between the incidents, as the rebels have increasingly turned to drug trafficking to finance their activities, though he did not provide evidence. Petro has ordered beefed-up security on government officials and Opposition leaders in response to the attacks. Uribe had been a staunch critic of Petro's security strategy aimed at ending six decades of armed conflict, arguing that Petro's approach of pausing offensives on armed groups despite the failure of peace talks only backfired. The senator had two government-provided bodyguards protecting him at the time of the shooting, the head of the National Protection Unit said on Monday. Uribe's lawyer, Victor Mosquera, said he had repeatedly asked for more. - Reuters
RNZ News
3 days ago
- RNZ News
Colombian presidential candidate's condition 'grave' after assassination attempt
By Alba Santana , AFP Miguel Uribe. Photo: AFP/SEBASTIAN BARROS A prominent Colombian presidential candidate was in "grave" condition and "fighting for his life" in hospital Sunday, after an alleged teen gunman shot him twice in the head at a Bogota campaign rally. Thirty-nine-year-old right-wing Senator Miguel Uribe underwent successful initial surgery to contain injuries from Saturday's attack, but doctors warned his life was still in serious peril. He remains in "the most grave condition and the prognosis is reserved" said medics at the capital's Santa Fe Clinic. Uribe's shooting has utterly shocked a nation that had believed decades of bloody political and narco violence were largely in the past. Hundreds took to the streets in major cities on Sunday to light candles, pray and voice their anger at the attack. "Our hearts are broken, Colombia hurts," Carolina Gomez, a 41-year-old businesswoman, told AFP as she lit candles and prayed outside the hospital where Uribe was being treated. The crowd joined together in cries of "strength to you Miguel" and "the people are with you." Uribe's wife Maria Claudia Tarazona thanked Colombians for their support and asked that they collectively pray for his survival. "He is fighting hard for his life," she said. The senator received two gunshot wounds to the head and was also shot once in the leg. Although a security guard at the scene captured the alleged gunman, the motive for the shooting is still not publicly known. Uribe had been a fierce critic of Colombia's leftist government, of guerrilla groups that still control chunks of the country and of ultra-powerful drug cartels. The government has vowed to use every police, military and intelligence resource to uncover the motive and find those who hired the alleged would-be assassin. Police said there had been no specific threats against Uribe's life, but like other public figures he had close personal protection. The young Senator's family history traces the tragedies of modern Colombia, making the attack all the more poignant for many. He is the grandson of a former president Julio Cesar Turbay whose 1978-1982 term was marked by guerrilla insurgencies and the emergence of the Medellin and Cali drug cartels. Pablo Escobar. Photo: supplied But Uribe is best known as the son of Diana Turbay, a famed Colombian journalist who was killed after being kidnapped by Pablo Escobar and whose death rocked the nation. A team of about 100 investigators are now working to determine the motive for the attack, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said Sunday. Earlier he had offered a roughly US$725,000 (NZ$1.2m) reward for information about who was behind the shooting. The suspect, believed to be about 15 years old, was injured in the affray and was receiving treatment, said police director Carlos Fernando Triana. Two others - a man and a woman - were also wounded, and a Glock-style firearm was seized. The attack has been condemned by politicians across the political spectrum. Leftist President Gustavo Petro condemned the violence as "an attack not only against his person, but also against democracy, freedom of thought, and the legitimate exercise of politics in Colombia". The shooting was similarly condemned from overseas, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling it "a direct threat to democracy". But Rubio also pointed blame at Petro, claiming the attack was the "result of the violent leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government". "President Petro needs to dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials," the top US diplomat said. - AFP
