National: 22 Defenders Extrajudicially Executed in 2022 – Mexico Cerezo Committee

In its latest report, the Mexico Cerezo Committee reported that in 2022 it documented 22 extrajudicial executions of human rights defenders. It clarified that they considered “murders that are also configured as human rights violations insofar as they have been committed by State agents in the modality of commission or acquiescence”, this “for political reasons, that is, as a form of punishment for the activity of defense or exercise of any human right that human rights defenders were carrying out.”

The report stressed that to date and in the last three six-year terms of office they have documented a total of 335 cases, the highest number of cases occurring in the Enrique Peña Nieto government (56%) followed by that of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (24%) and that of Calderon (20%).

Oaxaca tops the list with ten cases followed by Puebla (3) and Michoacan (2). Most of those killed were defenders of territory followed by defenders of a dignified life, those of freedom of expression, self-determination, the environment, searchers for the disappeared, personal integrity, and protest. The number of victims of extrajudicial execution that belong to an indigenous people continues to represent a high percentage if one looks at it from a perspective proportional to the number of indigenous inhabitants with respect to the general population.

As for who benefited from extrajudicial executions in 2022, in first place are municipal governments (11 cases), then state governments (seven cases), state companies (three cases), and individuals (one case).

In 12 cases, the PRI governs the municipalities where the extrajudicial executions took place, in eight cases MORENA governs and in one respectively PAN and PES.

For more information in Spanish:

INFORME: 22 Personas defensoras de Derechos Humanos ejecutadas extrajudicialmente en el 2022 (Comité Cerezo, 10 de enero de 2023)

Supera gobierno de AMLO al de Calderón, en asesinatos de defensores de DH(Contramuro, 10 de enero de 2022)

Comité Cerezo dice que 25 defensores fueron “asesinados extrajudicialmente” en 2021 (Sin Embargo, 4 de enero de 2022)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National: Oaxaca, Guerrero and Chiapas – Three Most Dangerous States in Mexico for Defense of Human Rights (December 12, 2022)

National: “Defending Human Rights in Mexico: Between Negligence and Simulation”, ACUDDEH Report Published (September 3, 2022)

Chiapas/National: Chiapas – State with Most Arbitrary Arrrests in Republic: Tenth Report Defending Human Rights in Mexico (August 26, 2021)

National: 107 Human Rights Violations against Defenders – Mexico Cerezo Committee (August 27, 2020)