On 14 March in the Senate of the Republic was presented a point of agreement directed to the executive branch indicating the urgency of approving a mechanism for the protection of journalists and rights-defenders. In this document, the adverse conditions for the practice of liberty of expression and the right to defend human rights “in light of the increasing violence registered in our country and the impunity in which governmental authorities and organized crime act, there have been registered violent attacks against journalists and activists as a deliberate and organized response to their work.”
In a similar sense, on 15 March, civil organizations for the defense and promotion of human rights denounced in a press conference that aggressions against defenders continue to increase in the state of Chihuahua and are maintained in Guerrero and Oaxaca; the case is similar for journalists in Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Morelos. These organizations claim that in Mexico the State mechanisms charged with protecting and guaranteeing the security of threatened journalists and defenders are ineffective, referring in particular to international precautionary measures. They stressed that the government must “publicly recognize the importance of the work of defenders and journalists and the vulnerability to which they are exposed, create mechanisms of protection, and install a worktable to attend to the problem of aggressions and death-threats.”
The same day, in Mexico City, Urgent Action for Human-Rights Defenders (Acuddeh) presented the organization Protection Desk Mexico which will seek to “remove from invisibility the violence and risks involved in defending human rights” and to contribute to “the development of security plans in the organizations, to help defenders and organizations to overcome obstacles to obtain security, diminish difficulties in work, stress the importance of governmental protectipon mechanisms, and make the UN declaration on rights-defenders be respected.”
Finally, in observation of the 41st National Assembly realized in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, the National Network of Civil Human-Rights Organizations “All Rights for All” pronounced itself on the situation of human-rights defenders as regards the context experienced in southeastern Mexico, denouncing that “the generalized violence in the country and the deepening of impunity exacerbate the present context of repression, poverty, criminalization, migration, territorial looting, and attacks against those who promote, defend, and exercise all rights for all.”
For more information (in Spanish):
Punto de Acuerdo del Senado de la República sobre mecanismo de protección a periodistas y defensores de derechos humanos (14 March 2011)
Aumentan agresiones contra activistas y comunicadores (La Jornada, 15 March)
Ante el riesgo de defender los derechos humanos, Protection Desk trabajará desde la sociedad civil en seguridad y registro de agresiones(CENCOS, 15 March 2011)
Ola de violencia afecta a defensores de los derechos humanos en el sureste del país (La Jornada, 21 March 2011)
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