On February 22, five members of the Indigenous People’s Organization Me’phaa (OPIM) were granted an appeal for legal protection, putting a stop to arrest warrants against them. The five members had been accused of being responsible for the murder of an army informant. Raul Hernandez Abundio is still in prison – unjustly — for this same crime. Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience in November 2008.
In a statement, the Montana Tlachinollan Human Rights Center said: “This latest appeal for legal protection in favour of five human rights defenders once again shows the clear and obvious intention of the Mexican State to persecute and imprison whoever organizes themselves to put in practice their collective rights, and document and denounce cases of abuse by the military. The Me’phaa indigenous people have fought for their rights, among them Ines Fernandez Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantu whose cases are now before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.”
For more information (in Spanish):
– Boletin del Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan (22 de febrero de 2010)
– Frenan orden de aprehensión contra 5 indígenas (El Universal, 23 de febrero de 2010)
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