In the Face of the Imposition of Terror, We Respond: Human Rights, Social Justice, and Solidarity are Non-Negotiable
(Lea esta declaración en español aquí).
We live in times of terror — times in which the government of the United States, through the policies of its president, Donald Trump, imposes fear, authoritarianism, uncertainty, punishment, and intimidation. Imposing terror on the people through policies that violate fundamental rights is an extreme form of state violence.
At Kilómetro 0, we defend human rights and recognize the dignity of all people and communities. Our commitment is to confront state violence—particularly police violence—by documenting it, analyzing it, monitoring it, accompanying victims of these abuses, and transforming collective narratives around public safety. Our work has always been to protect and defend people and their communities from the harms caused by policing logics grounded in violence, punishment, repression, and impunity. Today, those same logics appear to reinforce the U.S. government’s dangerous turn toward neo-fascist and totalitarian policies.
In Puerto Rico, which is a colony of the United States, these policies manifest in various ways:
The re-militarization of our territory, with the objective of threatening Venezuela, a neighboring country with which we have no conflict.
Violent attacks, raids, and repression targeting Caribbean migrant communities that have been part of our society since time immemorial.
Systematic attacks against the rights of women, pregnant people, LGBTQIA+ persons, and diverse communities.
The use of state agencies and powers to censor, intimidate, detain, and persecute the legal profession, civil organizations, media outlets, and journalists.
Climate denialism and the dismantling of environmental protections to place economic interests above life and community well-being—an assault on human rights that affects islands in a particularly severe and disproportionate way.
Colonial displacement and settlement policies that raise the cost of living and expel people from their communities, an expression of a colonial model of exploitation that benefits wealthy U.S. citizens at the expense of the Puerto Rican people.
In recent years—especially following the global uprisings since 2019, shifts in the geopolitical landscape, the genocidal violence we are witnessing in Palestine, and the new Trump presidency in the United States—the connections between police violence, colonialism, and the resurgence of fascism have become undeniable. This trend is the outcome of a global system built on structural racism, colonial capitalism, and impunity—systems that generate power divisions and rely on the exclusion of the Other (a racialized, colonized Other) as policy.
The presence of these authoritarian and normalized systems of division within democracies is what we call neofascism. States seek to advance a discourse of the “Other,” branding certain groups as “illegal,” “criminal,” or “delinquent,” to divide us through hate—making it seem as if one group is responsible for all the crises we face today. In doing so, governments, policymakers, and the ultra-wealthy corporations and individuals who hold disproportionate power are freed from accountability.
At Kilómetro 0, we commit to making visible the experiences of the most impacted communities, accompanying them in denouncing injustices, documenting human rights violations, and building national, regional, and international alliances. Our resistance is not limited to the symbolic: it is action, documentation, education, community accompaniment, and solidarity. The defense of life, justice, and democracy is inseparable from our ethics and our strategy. Therefore, we firmly confront abuses of power, silencing, and state impunity.
From Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, in this critical time, we reaffirm that human rights, social justice, and solidarity are non-negotiable. Resisting state violence and abuse of power is not only a political stance—it is a practical defense of daily life: of schools, health, work, and human dignity—against the decisions imposed by a tyrannical government that threatens peoples and communities. A dignified life, democracy, and human rights are at the core of our work, and we will defend good living—el buen vivir—through our commitment and transformative action.