Rebecca Sprößer left for Cali in Colombia in March.

In the "capital of salsa" she looked for the Colombian joie de vivre and adventure, as she once said.

And then she fell in love with the people around her and started volunteering at a dance school to extend her stay.

Tjerk Brühwiller

Correspondent for Latin America based in São Paulo.

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But the 34-year-old Frankfurter's entries on social media soon changed shape when the nationwide and sometimes very violent protests against the government broke out in Colombia and the dance school was also closed because of the curfew.

Sprößer, who lived in Mexico and other countries for a while before her trip to Colombia and, by her own account, also worked as a journalist, decided to report on the events in Colombia, the police violence and the situation of the mostly young demonstrators. In Cali, where the protests were most violent and numerous demonstrators were killed, she hung on the heels of the demonstrators and local journalists to publicize the experience on social networks. On a profile picture that she published on Facebook at the end of May, she wore a helmet that read "Deutsche Presse". Sprößer wrote to German media and offered himself up for interviews. In Colombia, too, the Frankfurt native had increasingly come into the media spotlight.She willingly reported to the Colombian media about her experiences and her view of things.

But their critical distance from the demonstrators grew smaller, their identification with them and their sympathies grew.

At some point she realized that her work in Colombia was no longer compatible with the press code because she had joined the resistance movement and had gone from being a journalist to a demonstrator.

After a conversation with the committee of the international press, she announced in a statement on social media that she was acting autonomously “for the benefit and honor of the German press” and that her publications did not meet the institutional criteria of the German press, but her personal view reflected.

Sprößer was known nationwide

Sprößer had long been known to the demonstrators in Cali. Her entries on social media show how she penetrated deeper and deeper into the circle of the so-called "first line", the foremost front. Sprößer took to the street and opposed the police, whose violence against the demonstrators they denounced. She exposed herself on social networks and local media. At the latest after a portrait in the national newspaper El Espectador, the "German from the first line in Cali" was known nationwide. Not everyone seemed to like it. Sprößer reported to the journalists about intimidation and anonymous death threats.

It shouldn't stop at threats. In her last post on Facebook for the time being, Sprößer reported a few days ago that she and a friend had been the victim of a violent attack. An attacker shot her, her boyfriend was seriously injured by several shots, she herself got away with minor injuries and the horror. The local media reported that there was no official confirmation of the alleged attack. Nevertheless, the German ambassador in Bogotá, Peter Ptassek, expressed concern about the news.

After Sprößer reported the attack in Cali to the "Committee for Political Prisoners" in Cali, she was arrested by officers from the police and the immigration authorities and expelled from the country on Tuesday.

She entered Colombia as a tourist, but took part in actions that had nothing to do with her entry status and disrupted public order, the immigration authorities said in the grounds.

Sprößer is no longer allowed to enter Colombia until further notice.

Your adventure in the salsa capital has come to an abrupt end.

But unlike the dozen young Colombians who were killed in the protests, she got away unscathed.