On 30 August, there was commemorated the International Day for Victims of Forced Disappearance. In observance of this day, there were held several protests as led by relatives of victims of said crime to demand justice in states such as Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Michoacán, Morelos, and Chiapas. For its part, Amnesty International (AI) publicly asked with regard to Mexico the following: “When will the promises of President Enrique Peña Nieto to not tolerate disappearances and find the victims become reality?” AI noted that “the cases are not being resolved, either recent ones or ones dating back decades.” Such failures are due, in AI’s analysis, to “a lack of will on the part of the authorities at different levels to act, investigate, and carry out justice against those responsible for such crimes.”
On 26 August, the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) reported on a program of compensation for persons who provide information regarding the whereabouts of disappeared persons. In these terms, AI declared that “it is not a bad idea to offer cash prizes, as there may be powerful interests offering more or less the same money to guard silence, but if there are no effective investigations of cases, and if evidence is not collected or the testimony or participation of relatives of victims is not taken into account, cases will proceed little or none at all.”
In May 2013, the federal government released a list of more than 26,000 persons reported as disappeared, kidnapped, or lost between 2006 and 2012. The authorities still have yet to revise this information to update who it is that remain disappeared, whether through the direct or indirect work of the State or organized crime.
For more information (in Spanish):
Gobierno de Peña sin respuesta al problema de los desaparecidos: Amnistía, Proceso, 30 de agosto de 2013
Recuerdan a víctimas en el día internacional de las desapariciones forzadas, La Jornada, 30 de agosto de 2013
Incompetencia deliberada del Estado para investigar y responder a la grave situación de la desaparición de personas en México (Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, 30 de agosto de 2013)
México: Familiares de víctimas de desaparición forzada aún no ven resultados (artículo, Amnistía Internacional, 30 de agosto de 2013)
For more information from SIPAZ (in English):
Mexico: Insufficient attention to human rights on the part of EPN (20 March 2013)
National: Amnesty International presents report regarding use of torture in Mexico (19 October 2012)
National: International judges report on conclusions of the observation of state of justice in Mexico (12 October 2012)
Mexico: the International Week of the Disappeared and Detained ends (9 June 2011)
Mexico: National Day against Forgetting and Impunity by the FNLS (8 June 2011)
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