Miguel Ángel Gámez
Miguel Ángel Gámez is a human rights defender who is the leader of the community of Santa Marta and former Community Director and member of the ADESCO “Santa Marta”. As a community leader, he has actively worked in the management and promotion of the community’s infrastructure projects, as well as a defender of the common goods of the community, including the defence of the right to a healthy environment free of activities that may cause harm to it.
The human rights defender community is regularly subjected to campaigns of defamation - they are labeled as 'traitors of the nation', 'terrorists' and 'subversive'. This tactic employed by the authorities is designed to discredit and undermine the work of human rights defenders by isolating and marginalising them, making them a vulnerable target for abuse. Community leaders and environmental activists who are opposed to large-scale mining projects face death threats and violence.
