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Catalina Botero Marino


Catalina Botero Marino (born 7 September 1965 in Bogotá) is a Colombian attorney who has been the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) since 2008.

Botero is the daughter of an architect/designer and of an ecologist. She attended the Juan Ramón Jiménez secondary school in Bogotá and received her law degree in 1988 from the University of the Andes.

While a student, Botero was a leader of the "Septima Papeleta" (Seventh Ballot) Movement, which called for the convocation of a National Constituent Assembly in Colombia in 1991.

After receiving her law degree, she went on to do postgraduate studies in Public Management and Administrative Law at the same university. She continued her postgraduate work in Madrid, where she studied human rights at the University Human Rights Institute at the Universidad Complutense (1990–91), studied constitutional rights and political science at the Center for Constitutional Studies (1992), and received a degree in advanced studies (DEA) at the Universidad Carlos III.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) elected Botero as Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression on 21 July 2007. She took up the position in July 2008.

In August 2010, Botero and Frank La Rue, a UN Special Rapporteur, made recommendations to the Mexican government regarding freedom of expression and access to public information. They stated that Mexico is the most dangerous country for journalists in the Americas. They also criticized the fact that impunity is widespread in Mexico, that free expression is limited by federal and state laws, that there is lack of media plurality, and that access to public information is increasingly restricted.

In a 2011, Botero wrote an article titled "Freedom of Expression in the Americas," which observed that while Latin American military dictatorships had given way, in large part, to democracy, a "culture of secrecy" remained in place, as did "restrictive press laws." He claims that while "the region faces a number of major challenges," including the protection of journalists, the decriminalization of speech acts, access to information, direct and indirect censorship, and pluralism and diversity in the public debate.


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