Rossana Esther Muga Gonzáles has dedicated almost her entire life as a lawyer to international law and strategic litigation. Her training in legal education programs at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in the United States and her field experience in various countries influenced this path. For 13 years, her focus has been on defending freedom of belief. As an external consultant for the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Latin America (OLIRE), she investigates everything from normative and factual restrictions on this right to patterns of victimization and types of perpetrators. Like an artist, she sketches a comprehensive portrait, sometimes of harsh scenes: displacement, intimidation, violence.

Analyzing the context, documenting attacks, and translating the evidence into concrete recommendations for public actors, church networks, and international partners are the core of her work. In other words, it shouldn’t remain merely a diagnosis, “but rather fuel advocacy processes capable of driving real changes in public policies and protection practices with a real impact on the affected communities.”

At the same time, she laments that in predominantly Christian societies like those in Latin America, religious freedom is frequently underestimated.

Muga Gonzáles believes that strengthening religious freedom also strengthens rights connected to its exercise, such as freedom of expression and assembly. Furthermore, “in critical moments, such as in social-communist regimes, under the violence of organized crime, or in indigenous contexts where abandoning community beliefs is punished, it reveals how important religious freedom is for dignity and personal resilience.”

Here is my interview with Muga.

Colombia, along with Mexico and Cuba, is one of the countries where Christians are most persecuted in the Americas, according to OLIRE. Given that it is a nation with a Catholic majority and a growing evangelical sector, why is this happening?

Four Latin American countries generate the most concern in our reports, despite the fact that — as you point out — they have an overwhelmingly Christian population: Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua. When we speak of “persecution of Christians” in these contexts, we do not mean that there are laws prohibiting Christianity or declaring its practice illegal, as is the case in other parts of the world, but rather that the expressions of faith inherent in Christian identity place those who live them — especially leaders and more active believers — in a vulnerable position vis-à-vis power structures, whether state or de facto. In other words, their visible membership in the church makes them potential targets of pressure, punishment, or control.

In the case of Colombia, the key factor is the convergence of chronic violence, territorial control by armed actors, and high levels of impunity. In large regions of the country, criminal groups and structures inherited from the armed conflict wield de facto power and only intensify violence when they dispute territories among themselves or confront the state. In this context, many churches are perceived as a “destabilizing” factor to their economic and illicit interests.

When a religious leader discourages the recruitment of teenagers, accompanies victims of displacement, denounces abuses, or simply refuses to pay extortion, they become a problem to be neutralized. This leads to threats, restrictions on worship, monitoring of sermons, and, in extreme cases, targeted assassinations. This dynamic also extends to family members and parishioners who refuse to participate in illicit activities or pay fees, and who, for that reason, suffer harassment, attacks, and, in many cases, forced displacement.

Cuba and Nicaragua, on the other hand, represent a different pattern, where the focus of the restrictions comes directly from the State. In both cases, we observe dictatorial regimes that impose very strong controls on community life, preaching, religious activities in public spaces, and, in general, on any expression of faith that could be perceived as critical or inconvenient for the government. Comparatively speaking, the levels of homicidal violence are not the same as in Colombia or Mexico, but there is a dense network of administrative control: obstacles to legal registration, surveillance and harassment of leaders, hurdles to building or registering temples, sanctions against those who cross certain “red lines” in their discourse, and a very limited margin for church autonomy.

The result in these four countries is paradoxical: religious freedom is formally recognized in the constitutions and domestic legislation, but in practice it is conditioned, restricted, or violated by the actions of armed actors, the state apparatus, or a combination of both. This gap between legal recognition and daily reality is precisely what explains why Colombia, despite being a deeply Christian country, consistently ranks among the most concerning cases of persecution against Christians in the region.

Following Hamas’s terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, President Gustavo Petro repeatedly posted on social media comparing the Israeli response to the Nazi regime. This drew complaints from the Confederation of Jewish Communities of Colombia. What is the status of religious minorities like this one in the country?

The events of October 7, 2023, marked a global turning point. Since then, various observatories have recorded a significant increase in anti-Semitic incidents and rhetoric in many regions, and Latin America has not been spared.

In the case of Colombia, where the Jewish community is numerically small but historically well-integrated, the problem is not so much a change in the legal framework — which continues to guarantee religious freedom — as a change in the political and discursive climate.

In this regard, President Petro’s stance has been particularly critical of the Israeli government, using comparisons to Nazism and very harsh terms to describe the military response in Gaza. These interventions have been perceived by both Jewish and non-Jewish actors as contributing to a potentially hostile environment toward Jews, even though the government has insisted that its criticisms are directed exclusively at the State of Israel. This escalation ultimately led to the announcement, in May 2024, of the severing of diplomatic relations with Israel, accompanied by official statements denying any anti-Semitic intentions and emphasizing the Colombian state’s respect for the country’s Jewish communities.

However, such an openly confrontational political and media environment does have an impact on the perception and security of the Jewish community. Its institutions perceive a real risk that criticism of the State of Israel could, in certain sectors, slip into narratives that question or stigmatize Jews as a people. International organizations warn that in contexts where official discourse on Israel becomes more radicalized, the risk of anti-Semitic incidents also tends to increase, even if they don’t immediately translate into physical attacks, but rather into digital hostility, threats, graffiti, or changes in the security environment of synagogues and community centers.

Therefore, in Colombia today, we are not talking about a Jewish minority without rights or recognition, but rather a community that, amidst an extremely polarized international situation and a significant shift in the country’s foreign policy toward Israel, is forced to strengthen its institutional dialogue, its protection measures, and its educational efforts. The challenge is to ensure that the legitimate discussion about Gaza and the Israeli government’s policies does not lead to the normalization of stereotypes, prejudices, or acts of hostility against Jews as a religious group in Colombia.

What role have paramilitaries and organized crime played in Colombia’s recent history of attacks against religious freedom?

In Colombia, if we remove paramilitaries, guerrilla groups, and their criminal heirs from the equation, most of the serious violations of religious freedom that we have documented in recent years practically disappear. The vast majority of cases — threats, confinement of communities, restrictions on worship, and the murders of pastors or committed laypeople — are concentrated in areas where these actors wield de facto power and the state is severely weakened or absent.

Historically, paramilitary groups have attempted to manipulate churches: demanding explicit support, seeking religious legitimacy for their projects, or using the ecclesiastical structure as a channel for social control. When a Christian leader refused to play along — refused to bless the armed group, remain silent in the face of abuses, accept funding for “contributions,” or cede space for their purposes — the response was threats, forced displacement, or, in extreme cases, execution. We see that same logic replicated today in the hands of criminal structures that inherited paramilitary practices and are intertwined with illicit economies.

Added to this is a very specific pattern that explains the particular vulnerability of Christians: their work with young people, farmers, and rural communities affected by the conflict. In various regions, armed groups have pressured churches and families to forcibly recruit teenagers, attempting to ensnare them despite the pastoral care they receive. When churches organize activities with young people to steer them away from gangs, or when churches speak out against recruitment, they become a direct obstacle to the interests of these groups.

Similarly, in areas with illicit economies, Christians face extortion and threats linked to illegal crops: leaders and parishioners are pressured to tolerate or even participate in the cultivation of coca or other illicit crops; those who refuse, for ethical or religious reasons, are punished with higher extortion payments, threats, restrictions on movement, and even direct violence. Recent cases, such as the assassination of religious leaders in departments like Guaviare, illustrate how simply accompanying the peasant community, questioning the planting of illicit crops, or refusing to legitimize an armed group can cost one their life.

Furthermore, in some indigenous areas, conversion to Christianity introduces another layer of risk. Converts may be perceived as disloyal to traditional authorities or as a gateway for external influences. When this community tension is compounded by the presence of armed groups, Indigenous Christians find themselves in a particularly vulnerable position, caught between the pressure of local authorities, the demands of armed actors, and a state apparatus that arrives late or not at all.

In practice, religious freedom becomes a highly sensitive indicator of the extent to which a territory has been captured by actors outside the state: where paramilitaries, guerrillas, or organized crime are the true power, visibly professing the Christian faith — leading a church, working with young people, denouncing violence, opposing illicit crops — is not only a spiritual choice but also a concrete source of risk. This combination of visibility, community work, and ethical commitment explains why Christians, and particularly their leaders, repeatedly appear among the most vulnerable victims in these kinds of contexts.