Oaxaca: PBI calls for strengthening of protection of rights-defenders in the state

Following a meeting with Oaxaca state governor Gabino Cué, representatives of Peace Brigades International (PBI Mexico) reported in a press-release on 19 February some of the challenges for the protection of human-rights defenders in the state, such as “the adequate functioning and strengthening of the institutions and implementation of the Mechanism for the Protection of Rights-Defenders at the state level, in cooperation with those who benefit from this.”

Ben Leather, representative of the PBI, recognized the opening of the Gabino Cué administration in terms of human rights, but he warned of the worrying statistics on assaults registered to date.  The latest report by Urgent Action for Human-Rights Defenders indicated that Oaxaca is the second state in Mexico (after Chihuahua) in the number of attacks on rights-defenders in 2011, and it leads for the first third of the year 2012.  Human-rights defenders continue to report death-threats, harassment, defamation, criminalization, physical attacks, and murder.  Due to the situation of risk confronted by rights-defenders, PBI has maintained a permanent team in Oaxaca since 2008.

For more information (in Spanish):

PBI México llama al gobernador de Oaxaca a fortalecer la protección a personas defensoras (PCI, boletín de prensa, 21 de febrero de 2013)

Oaxaca, el estado con más ataques contra activistas (Proceso, 20 de febrero de 2013)

Chiapas: Demand for motion in the case of Zapatista prisoner Francisco Santiz López

In an informational note published on 1 November, the Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Center for Human Rights (CDHFBC) announced that it had presented a motion in favor of Francisco Santiz López, a Zapatista support-base from Banavil (Tenejapa municipality) who has been imprisoned in San Cristóbal de las Casas since the end of December 2011.  The CDHFBC posited that it had submitted this motion for the immediate liberation Santiz López “in light of the grave violations of due process committed against his person,” which include the “lack of adequate counsel and access to justice, given that he lacks both a translator and a social defender knowledgeable of his language and culture, so as to assist him in his declaration before the Federal Attorney General’s Office,” as well of course as the violation of the principle of presumed innocence.

In observance of the international campaign Global Echo in Support of the Zapatistas that will end on 17 November, the CDHFBC requested the sending of urgent actions to different authorities, requesting the release of Santiz López.

For more information (in Spanish):

Nota informativa del CDHFBC: Acciones para la libertad de Francisco Sántiz López BAEZLN (CDHFBC, 1ero de noviembre de 2012)

Ante violaciones procesales, el Frayba pide amparar a base de apoyo del EZLN (La Jornada, 2 de noviembre de 2012)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: News from two prisoners in Chiapas state prisons (15 October 2012)

Chiapas: Oventic JBG once again demands release of Francisco Santiz López (17 June 2012)

Chiapas: Forum against political prison and for the release of Alberto Patishtán Gómez (21 May 2012)

Chiapas: Assembly is held in El Bosque to demand the release of Alberto Patishtán (25 March 2012)

Chiapas: CDHFBC publishes more information on the Banavil case (9 February 2012)

Chiapas: Urgent Action in in case of aggressions against families who sympathize with EZLN by PRI group from the Banavil ejido and arbitrary detention of Zapatista support-base (8 February 2012)

Guerrero: Alert is requested for high number of feminicides

Photo @ Periódico Digital

To date in 2012, the number of feminicides has increased in Guerrero.  Data from civil organizations reveal that until last August, at least 135 women were killed in the state, and so these organizations consider it urgent that state government declare a gender alert.  The coordination of the “Hannah Arendt” Observatory for Gender Violence in Guerrero, Rosa Icela Ojeda Rivera, said that since 2006 she had requested the state authorities to declare a gender alert, a request that has been rejected, although each day its need grows, given the number of murders that have been reigstered from 2005 to date.  Ojeda Rivera detailed that beyond the increase in assault on victims, “sexual violence and torture has been documented before the murder in a high number of cases, the bodies of murdered women were abandoned in public spaces, thrown into the trash or in sanitation channels.”  Gender violence has also increased, with Guerrero maintaining the third place in the country in these terms, after Mexico City and Chihuahua.

For more information (in Spanish):

Guerrero: piden emitir alerta por feminicidios (El Universal, 6 de septiembre de 2012)

Guerrero es el tercer estado con más feminicidios: Arendt (Periódico Digital, 24 de agosto de 2012)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

National: Amnesty International publishes report on violence against women in Mexico (20 July 2012)

Chiapas: Justice is demanded in the case of the feminicide of the youth Itzel Yanet Méndez Pérez (16 May 2012)

Demand for end to feminicide in Oaxaca (8 September 2011)

Guerrero – briefs – Tierra Caliente is second-highest national location in number of feminicides (14 September 2010)

Chiapas: Urgent Action for the forced transfer of prisoner Alberto Patishtán

According to information provided by prisoners fasting and on hunger strike in CERSS 5 in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, director José Miguel Alacrón Garciá and commander Andrés Alfaro Figueroa arrived during the early morning of Thursday 20 October together with several other officials to the sit-in of the prisoners to take away Professor Alberto Patishtán Gómez, without his consent and without revealing to where he was being moved.

In a denunciation, the Network against Repression denounces that “this is clearly an attempt to demoralize the hunger strike.  They are as aware as we are of the moral authority that Patishtán represents within the prison and more clearly in the strike.  Beyond this, he is the official spokesperson of this just act that our incarcerated comrades have undertaken in the prisons of San Cristóbal, Amate, and Motozintla.  The government has not only not pronounced itself publicly on the matter and sought to make-invisible the protest of the comrades, but rather is attempting to divide and dismantle this hunger strike.”  It also made a call “to demand that relatives, friends, and comrades be informed of the whereabouts of Professor Patishtán Gómez” as well as that he be released immediately together with all others who are either fasting or on hunger strike.

Later in the day, the Prosecutorial Office of the state reported that Patishtán Gómez had been transferred to the Federal Center for Social Reinsertion no. 8 (Cefereso), located in Guasave, Sinaloa.  The state government declared that “in observation of the program of the reduction of prison centers, this Thursday the federal Secretary of Public Security carried out the transfer of 48 prisoners who had been held in the Chiapas CERSS to different federal prisons in the country.”

In an Urgent Action published at the end of the day, the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Center for Human Rights indicated that “the transfer of Professor Alberto Patishtán Gómez is a clear punishment intended to disarticulate the movement of the prisoners on hunger strike and of their relatives.  It violates the right to the freedom of reunion, manifestation, and expression, as well as the rights of incarcerated persons as stipulated in several international accords such as the Principles and Good Practices regarding the Protection of the Imprisoned in the Americas from the Organization of American States: ‘transfers of prisoners should not be carried out with the intention of punishing, repressing, or discriminating against the incarcerated, their family-members, or representatives; nor should these be carried out in conditions that would result in their mental or physical suffering or that would be humiliating [...].   The transferred [...] should be authorized and supervised by competent authorities who under all circumstances respect dignity and fundamental rights, and who will take into account the necessity of persons to be imprisoned in locales near to their family, their community, their legal representatives [...].”

For m ore information (in Spanish):

RvsR Chiapas denuncia: Alberto Patishtán fue sacado del plantón en la madrugada del 20 de octubre (20 October)

Denuncia audio de Solidario de la Voz del Amate, en huelga de hambre (20 October)

Acción Urgente: Trasladan al Profesor Alberto Patishtán Gómez, vocero de La Voz del Amate (Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (20 October)

Por huelga de hambre, envían a penal para reos peligrosos a maestro tzotzil (Proceso, 20 October)

Llevan a penal de Sinaloa a Patishtán Gómez, vocero de reos de Chiapas en huelga de hambre (La Jornada, 21 October)

Trasladado a penal de Sinaloa (Cuarto Poder, 21 October)

Comunicado de Amnistía Internacional preocupada por el trato a huelguistas de hambre en Chiapas (21 October)

Audio:

Denuncia de traslado arbitrario de Alberto Patishtan – en Huelga de Hambre (20 October 2011)

Familiares de presos – huelga y ayuno (20 October 2011)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: 20 days into hunger strike and 11 days into sit-in of relatives, 2 prisoners are released (27 October 2011)

Chiapas: 15 days of hunger strike and  days of sit-in (17 October 2011)

Chiapas: Sit-in of relatives of relatives of prisoners on hunger strike(17 October 2011)

Chiapas: MPJD arrives once again to Chiapas, there to express solidarity with Las Abejas, prisoners on strike, and Zapatistas (17 October 2011)

Chiapas: 8 days of hunger strike at CERSS no. 5 (7 October 2011)

Chiapas: Prisoners fasting and on hunger strike (4 October 2011)

Chiapas: Public day for Fasting and Prayer for Peace in the San Cristóbal prison (26 September 2011)

Chiapas: FNLS denounces harassment following return to Las Conchitas

Members of the FNLS upon suspension of their sit-in SCLC @SIPAZ

The National Front of Struggle for Socialism (FNLS) denounced that following its return to the community fo Las Conchitas, municipality of salta de Agua, the 5 families that were displaced in July find themselves newly subjected to harassment and intimidation on the part of armed persons, according to Marciano Gaspar González.  In its urgent action published on 24 August the FNLS denounces that “the paramilitary group continues to ambush our comrades in their lands, carrying out nocturnal rounds and firing at whichever hour as acts of intimidation, showing their power to kill our comrades.”

They added that the authorities have not moved judicially against the aggressors of the violent displacement perpetrated on 4 July, something which they see as reflecting “that the government of Juan Sabines, the secretary of government Noé Castañón, functionaries of the federal CONANP, PROFEPA, and SEMARNAT not only organize, finance, and direct the paramilitary groups in coordination with military structures but also allow them total impunity so that they can continue carrying out counter-insurgent actions against organized peoples and communities.”

They concluded that tension and uncertainty is what is lived daily since the return of their comrades who saw it as necessary to return so as to work the land and so survive, given that the state authorities were deaf to their pleas, leaving them defenseless and at the mercy of criminals and murderers.

For  more information (in Spanish):

FNLS; El gobierno reorganiza los ataques y hostigamientos a los compañeros de la organización del MRPS-FNLS, retornados hacia la Comunidad Las Conchitas, preparando una nueva masacre  (Acción Urgente, 28 August 2011)

Fin del plantón, retorno y solicitud de garantías: FNLS (Boletín de Prensa FNLS, 15 August 2011)

Exiliados vuelven a Conchitas (Cuarto Poder, 16 August 2011)

Desalojan plantón de la CNDH y de la Plaza Catedral en SCLC (El imparcial de Chiapas, 17 August 2011)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: End of sit-in and return to Las Conchitas (FNLS) (19 August 2011)

Chiapas: protests regarding displacement of 5 families of Ranchería Las Conchitas, municipality of Salto de Agua (27 July 2011)

Mexico: National Day against Forgetting and Impunity by the FNLS (8 June 2011)

Chiapas: Judicial Harassment of Human-Rights Defender

Manifestación Consejo Autónomo dela Costa (@CDH Digna Ochoa)

On 18 June, the Observation-Institution for the Protection of Human Rights, which is associated with the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), requested the intervention of the Mexican government in light of acts of judicial harassment against Nataniel Hernández, director of the Digna Ochoa Human-Rights Center, in the coastal region of Chiapas.

On 11 June, Nataniel Hernández was called before the Public Ministry; he arrived on the 15th, there to be informed that an investigation had been undertaken into his participation in a road-block in the municipality of Pijijiapan in April.  This road-block had been organized by several community organizations engaging in civil resistance against high electricty-prices; they form the Autonomous Regional Council of the Coastal Zone of Chiapas.  During the interrogation that lasted three hours, Hernández admitted having been presented at the road-block, given that “in his capacity as director of the Digna Ochoa Human-Rights Center, [...] his presence as an observer had been requested, so that he could document any rights-violation that could occur during the event”.

In a joint communiqué, the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human-Rights Center and the Digna Ochoa Human-Rights Center find that “the investigations of the Federal Attorney General’s Office in the city of Arriaga, Chiapas, constitute acts of harassment against Mr. Nataniel, linked to his work in defense and promotion of human rights.  We fear that the Federal Public Minister Angel Sandoval Lara turn the case over the corresponding judge and concurrently request an arrest-order against the director of the Digna Ochoa Human-Rights Center.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Joint bulletin Digna Ochoa Human-Rights Center, Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human-Rights Center (16 June)

Urgent Action from the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH, 17 June)

Digna Ochoa Human-Rights Center Blog

Oaxaca: Information update on observation-caravan attack

Two days after the attack occured against an observation caravan in the Triqui region in the state of Oaxaca, the four people initially reported missing made it out of the region. Two of them suffered gunshot wounds from the act of agression. Meanwhile, various national and international human rights organizations denounced the attack which took place on April 27 and demanded that the authorities clarify the events surrounding the crime.

According to press reports, April 29 saw the emergence of David Venegas and Noé Bautista, members of the organization Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Liberty (VOCAL, for the Spanish acronym), and rescued the same day were Érika Ramírez and David Cilia, reporters for the magazine Contralinea. Noé Bautista and David Cilia suffered bullet wounds from the April 27th attack. With this, there are no longer any missing persons remaining among those who participated in the caravan. Confirmed dead as a result of the attack were Beatriz Alberta Cariño Trujillo, director of the Center for Community Support Working Together (CACTUS), and Finnish human-rights observer, Jyri Jaakkola.

The agression against the observation caravan has raised strong national and international condemnation, from both non-governmental and supranational organizations. The National Network for the Rights of Everyone (RedTDT, for the Spanish acronym), in conjunction with more than 60 civil society and human rights organizations from Mexico, released an Urgent Action demanding that the state and federal governments undertake an exhaustive and impartial investigation of the attack and bring those responsible to justice. Also, Amnesty International and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH),  and the United Nations Office for the High Comissioner of Human Rights in Mexico (OACNUDH) condemed the attack on the caravan which had among its purposes the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population group surrounded by the paramilitary organization, Union of Social Welfare for the Triqui Region (UBISORT), in the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copalá.

The attack occured within the context of ongoing state-level election campaigns. Oaxaca’s governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, denied all responsibility on the part of the state government for the April 27 attacks.  Furthermore, he questioned the participation of foreigners in this caravan, suggesting that their migratory status be investigated.

The Peace Network, comprised of various human-rights organizations that work to promote peace in Chiapas, claimed that “the government of Oaxaca is calling into question international observation, a peaceful civil-intervention mechanism that has proven key in putting an end to violence in several locations and contexts.”

For more information:

• La Jornada: Safe and healthy, the Europeans who participated in the caravan:  SRE (30/04/2010)
• La Jornada: NGO will distribute condemnation of attack against observers on global scale (30/04/2010)
• La Jornada: Rescued, the Contralínea journalists shot in Copala (30/04/2010)
• La Jornada: Rare participation of foreigners in a problem-zone: Ulises Ruiz (29/04/2010)
• La Jornada: International condemnation of attack on observation-mission in Triqui region (29/04/2010)
• Urgent Action by National Network for the Rights of Everyone (28/04/2010)
• Urgent Action by Amnesty International (30/04/2010)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Oaxaca:  attack on observation-caravan–2 dead and 4 missing (29/04/2010)

Oaxaca:  the Peace Network condemns armed attack against observation-caravan in San Juan Copalá (01/05/2010)

CHIAPAS: Frayba Denounces Criminalization of Human Rights Work

In an “Urgent Call to Action” declared on August 28^th, Human Right Center Fray Bartolome de Las Casas (Frayba) denounced new cases of harassment toward their workers as well as the communities and organizations they work alongside.

The Urgent Call to Action makes reference to events that have occurred since June, including harassment against Frayba’s director, Diego Cadenas Gordillo, the center’s president, Don Samuel Ruiz Garcia (who is the bishop emeritus of San Cristobal de Las Casas) as well as other employees of the Center. The Urgent Call to Action also refers to the criminal complaint made against Frayba by Esdras Alonso Gonzalez for “attacks to communication lines, attacks against the peace and security of the people, biodiversity and breaking and entering.” The accusations are linked to follow-up activities carried out by Frayba in Mitziton.

According to the Urgent Call to Action, during a protest on August 10^th and 11^th to denounce the liberation of prisoners accused of the Acteal massacre, a person taking pictures and asking Frayba workers about the event’s organization turned out to be a member of the military. On August 17^th, after a ceremony and press conference with the Mexican representative of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Frayba’s workers were followed and under surveillance by people in a Ford Fiesta with no license plate. The car slowed down along with the workers, proving that their goal was to closely follow the workers movements.

The final complaint was made regarding an event that is documented in detail in the text of the Urgent Call to Action. A person who claimed to be a member of the “Campesina Organization of Independent Workers” and supposedly sent by the General Secretary of the State of Chiapas, Noe Castañón, asked to speak to the director of Frayba to “establish direct contact and communication with you (Frayba) and Las Abejas.” According to Frayba the person stated, “the Governor has failed to carry out his campaign promises, has deceived people, and has been a disaster for the state government.” The person went on to say that’s why the Government Secretary “wants to talk to Don Samuel and Gonzalo Ituarte as well as the president of Las Abejas as soon as possible, so that they can ask for what they want” and for this, he asked for Frayba’s help to make contact. He also indicated that “Juan Sabines will no longer be Governor after presenting his government report, and it’s certain that Noe Castañón will become Governor” and that “he will immediately respond to everything Frayba demands.” When Frayba contacted Noe Castañón about his supposed representative, Castañón said “he hadn’t sent anyone and he was certain that this person was an impostor.”

Given this situation, Frayba reports “the accumulation of acts of harassment, surveillance, threats, defamation, slander and intimidation against its workers constitutes an attack against the personal and psychological integrity of the Frayba team. Besides being a violation of human rights, these acts impede and put at risk the development of our work in favor of the indigenous and non-indigenous people and communities of Chiapas.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Acción Urgente: “En Chiapas se criminaliza la defensa de los Derechos Humanos”, CDHFBC (28/08/2009)

More information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: concern regarding threats faced by human rights defenders (june 2009)

Oaxaca: Amnesty International testifies about the abduction and torture of a member of the APPO

On March 4, Marcelino Coache Verano, member of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) was abducted in the city of Oaxaca and tortured for a number of hours according to an Urgent Action report (Index Number: AMR 41/014/2009) by Amnesty International released on March 9. The international organization expressed concern for the safety of Marcelino Coache, who was abducted by 3 men, tied up, blindfolded, and taken to an unknown location.

“The men punched and hit him repeatedly with the butt of a gun and burned him with cigarettes around his nipples and genitals. After a few hours, he heard one man enter the room who said “this is one of the rebels” (éste es uno de los revoltosos). In response another man said “then we’ll kill him” (entonces lo matamos) and cocked a gun. Marcelino Coache was then bundled into a vehicle and driven away. He was released in Zaachila municipality, about 30 km from Oaxaca City, at about 3.30 AM on 5 March. He managed to secure a lift from a taxi and was driven straight to hospital for medical attention”.

Two days later, Marcelino Coache held a press conference in order to denounce the incident. On March 11, dozens of members of section 22 of the National Syndicate of Educational Workers (SNTE) and member of the APPO marched in protest of the illegal detention and torture of Marcelino Coache Verano.

The other day precautionary measures were sought by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR). It is not the first time that Marcelino Coache has suffered intimidation and physical aggression. At the beginning of the creation of the APPO in December of 2006, Marcelino Coache “was arrested along with other APPO leaders and accused of arson, sedition and resisting arrest. He was acquitted after spending more than six months in prison.”

For More Information:

Urgent Action: Mexico: Fear for safety: Marcelino Coache Verano (m), Amnesty International (3/9)

In Spanish:

Protestan decenas en Oaxaca contra la represión del appista Coache Verano, La Jornada (12/03/2009)

Oaxaca: Military operation in Santiago Lachivía leaves two dead and one wounded; Urgent Action

According to the Centro Prodh, on August 5, twenty military personnel arrived unannounced at the community of Santiago Lachivía, located within the San Carlos Yautepec district, in the southern sierra of Oaxaca, and shot several rounds into the air after which the majority of people in the area, who were working on a communal plot, attempted to flee, looking for safe cover. Two were left dead and one wounded as a result of the attack, according to the Communal Lands Commissioner Evaristo Belleza Ávila and later confirmed by the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Oaxaca (PGJE). However, in his initial statement Alberto Quezada, State Director of Public Security, confirmed that he was only aware of “one death in Lachivia (committed by) personnel in military uniform.”

In addition, anonymous government sources confirmed that there had been military presence in the region carrying out anti-organized crime operations. Immediately after the incident the military personnel searched those present and after failing to find any arms or drugs, they left the scene without any further explanation.

The Union of Indigneous Peoples and Communities of Yautepec Oaxaca (UPCIYO), Tequio Jurídico A.C. and Transparency for Local Development A.C. circulate an urgent action.