Guerrero: Third Visit of IACHR Follow-up Mechanism Three Years after Ayotzinapa Case

Photo @: Sipaz

From August 28th to 30th, the third visit of the Follow-up Mechanism of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for the Ayotzinapa case was conducted to monitor compliance with the recommendations of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE) investigation.

During his visit, the delegation of the IACHR visited the Rural School “Raúl Isidro Burgos”, where it heard the complaints of the parents, who according to Proceso magazine claim the lack of concrete progress in the case.

According to the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center of the, the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR in its Spanish acronym) informed the delegation that a team of more than 90 people were exclusively assigned to this research, and hopes that this will translate into results that bring the truth about what happened on September 26th and 27th, 2014.

The fathers and mothers summoned the Attorney General of the Republic to detain the municipal police of Huitzuco and Cocula, who could be involved in the arrest of the student teachers, before October. Otherwise, they warned, they will not return to the negotiating table scheduled for October.

The 26th of September 2017 will mark three years since the night of Iguala during which the 43 student teachers were disappeared, six others murdered and about 25 injured. Among the wounded was Aldo Gutierrez Solano, who received a bullet that destroyed 65% of his brain and he remains in a “vegetative” state. For this occasion parents of the victims announced a national march that will take place in Mexico City.

For more information in Spanish:

Claman justicia por normalistas de Ayotzinapa desaparecidos hace 35 meses (Proceso, 26 de agosto de 2017)

La CIDH lamenta que, a casi tres años, paradero de los 43 “sigue desconocido” (Proceso, 30 de agosto de 2017)

Mecanismo de seguimiento del asunto Ayotzinapa realiza tercera visita oficial a México (Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan, 30 de agosto de 2017)

A 3 años del caso Ayotzinapa, el gobierno sigue sin conocer el paradero de los normalistas: CIDH (Animal Político, 30 de agosto de 2017)

XXXVI ACCIÓN GLOBAL POR AYOTZINAPA Y MÉXICO (Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan, 01 de septiembre de 2017)

En caso Ayotzinapa “hay avances”, pero falta tener pronto noticias del paradero de los 43: CIDH   (Proceso, 4 de septiembre de 2017)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: a 34 meses de la tragedia de Ayotzinapa familiares convocan a unas jornadas de lucha (31 de julio de 2017)

Guerrero: Sesión de seguimiento de la CIDH del caso Ayotzinapa : avances nulos (10 de julio de 2017)

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National: Human Rights Organizations’ Reports Contradict Progress Noted in Government’s Fifth Report

What Peña’s report doesn’t say “speaks volumes” Proceso

On September 1st, the Fifth Report of the Government was presented, boasting progress on poverty, employment, education and respect for human rights.

In contrast, a few days earlier, the sixth report on human rights violations against human rights defenders was published covering the period from June 2016 to May 2017 and documenting that within that time “four human rights violations occurred every day against persons defending human rights in Mexico.” This report reports that “a year and a half after the end of the period of Enrique Peña Nieto, 2426 arbitrary arrests are documented” since the beginning of his term of office. As for extrajudicial execution, it indicates that while during the period of former president Felipe Calderon 67 were documented, “in the period we have with EPN this repressive modality has increased to almost double, totalling 123 executions.” With regard to enforced disappearance, it indicates 11 cases in the period covered by the report. “In general, the report tells us that the use of extrajudicial execution is the most repressive mode used by the State in the period covered by this report compared to previous years, (…) This clearly shows that the State increases the intensity of repression for political reasons when faced with the will of the defenders to keep up their work.”

It also denounced that “the improvement of repressive techniques includes actions such as maintaining impunity for human rights violations committed, implying that the State covers the gaps in the investigations of the most serious cases of HRV to prevent them from reaching international bodies, that is to say, it does not investigate, but only in appearance complies with what the law dictates, without this being reflected in an advance in investigations. At the same time, it accepts the visits of the international bodies of HR, but disqualifies the reports made by these international representatives. It further discredits the defense of human rights in two ways: by allowing a campaign that equates human rights defenders as defenders of criminals and, secondly, weakening the international human rights system by strengthening international humanitarian law, which judges people and not state structures, claiming that HRVs are individual acts, of subjects infiltrated or stressed, but that there has never been an order of state structures to violate human rights.”

On another note, covering the beginning of the term of Enrique Peña Nieto on July 31, 2017, the National Network of Civil Organisms for Human Rights All Rights for All (Red TDT in its Spanish acronym), made up of 84 groups from 23 states in the country, reaches similar conclusions in the report Hope is not Over. Situation of Human Rights Defenders during the Presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto, published in early September. It says that state governments are the ones that most violate human rights with 39% of cases, followed by the federal administration with 32%; municipal and community agents with 20%, and judicial officials with 18%. It also notes that 69% of the cases occurred in seven of the 30 states analyzed: Chiapas, Oaxaca, Mexico City, Guerrero, Veracruz, Puebla and the state of Mexico.

For more information in Spanish:

Desaparecieron 81 activistas y mataron a 106 este sexenio: ONG (6 de septiembre de 2017)

Informe completo « La esperanza no se agota. Situación de las personas defensoras de derechos humanos durante la presidencia de Enrique Peña Nieto » (Red Tdt, septiembre de 2017)

Boletín de prensa e informe completo – Sexto informe de violaciones de derechos humanos contra personas defensoras de los derechos humanos. “Defender los derechos humanos en México: La ejecución extrajudicial como respuesta del Estado. Junio de 2016 a mayo de 2017” (29 de agosto de 2017)

Lo que no dice el Informe de Peña “cuenta, y cuenta mucho (Proceso, 1ero de septiembre de 2017)

¿Qué dice el V Informe de Peña? Estos son los 5 ejes del texto (documento completo) (Animal Político, 1ero de septiembre de 2017)

Peña Nieto en su 5to Informe de Gobierno, ¿mentiras o verdades? (Animal Político, 4 de septiembre de 2017)

Los cinco ejes del informe de Gobierno de EPN (Sdp Noticias, 4 de septiembre de 2017)

For more information from SIPAZ :

Nacional : cuarto informe del gobierno de Peña Nieto(12 de septiembre de 2016)

Nacional: Múltiples críticas a la presentación del Tercer Informe de Gobierno de Peña Nieto (8 de septiembre de 2015)

 

Guerrero: 60-Year Prison Sentence for Murderers of Two Ayotzinapa Student Teachers

Photo @: Desinformemonos

On September 4th, nearly a year after the murder of students from the Raul Isidro Burgos Normal School, Ayotzinapa, Jonathan Morales Hernandez and Filimon Tacuba Castro, during an attack on urban public transport on the Chilpancingo-Tixtla highway, four people accused of the crime were sentenced to 60 years in prison in addition to having agreed reparation for damages for one of the victims.

The Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center called the sentence “an important achievement of justice”. However, they emphasized that the Office of the Prosecutor “has much to do in this case for its total clarification and to be able to offer truth to the victims.” They emphasized that “the murder of the student teachers is a paradigmatic case of the generalized violence that is lived through in Guerrero and the vulnerability in which the ordinary citizens find walking in a street or losing their lives getting onto a means of transport in the wrong place at the wrong time, while the rulers continue to try to hide this reality that lacerates us.”

This year, Jonathan and Filimon would have graduated as teachers.

For more information in Spanish:

Dan 60 años de prisión a asesinos de dos normalistas de Ayotzinapa (Proceso, 5 de septiembre de 2017)

Sentencia firme a un año del asesinato de dos estudiantes normalistas (Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan, 5 de septiembre de 2017)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerreo: Asesinan a dos normalistas de Ayotzinapa (5 de octubre de 2016)

Mexico: Announcements and Actions for International Day of the Victims of Forced Disappearances

(@ONU-DH)

On August 30th, International Day of Victims of Forced Disappearances, hundreds of family members and friends of missing persons marched in Coahuila, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon and Baja California to demand that the authorities make progress in the search for their loved ones and punish those responsible for this crime.

In this same context, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN-HR) in Mexico urged the Mexican State to recognize the competence of the United Nations Committee to oversee the Convention that deals with this issue to receive and to examine individual complaints of victims of enforced disappearances. Jan Jarab, UN-HR representative in Mexico reported that “despite the fact that eight years have passed since it ratified the International Convention for the Protection of Persons against this scourge, there are currently more than 30,000 disappeared in Mexico.” In this context, UN-HR reiterated its demand to the Chamber of Deputies to approve the general law on forced disappearance.

For the same reason, Amnesty International launched the campaign “Nothing is the same if someone disappears”, with an emphasis on the situation in Syria, Mexico and Spain. In the case of Mexico, the organization emphasized: “As of June 2017, according to the Government, 32,096 people were missing, without specifying how many had been forced to disappear. An emblematic case is the 43 students of Ayotzinapa who disappeared in September 2014. In April 2016, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts, appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, accused the Mexican Government of not following the key research lines, manipulating evidence, protecting officers suspected of participating in enforced disappearances, and torturing suspects to secure “confessions.” It has recently been verified that members of this group and of human rights organizations working on the case have been spied on with sophisticated programs available only to governments.”

On its part, the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH in its Spanish acronym) affirmed on the same occasion that disappearances still occur in Mexico and urged the Chamber of Deputies to approve the General Law on the subject at the next sitting.

The Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Center for Human Rights (CDHFBC in its Spanish acronym) issued a bulletin in which it denounced that “forced disappearance is part of the strategy used by the Mexican State to infuse terror in society and annihilate organizational experiences” and recalled that in Chiapas, “cases of forced disappearance, in the context of the Internal Armed Conflict, as a consequence of the implementation of the Chiapas Campaign Plan 94, committed by state agents and paramilitary groups that operated with the support, tolerance and acquiescence of the Mexican State, remain unpunished, creating conditions for their repetition.”

 For more information in Spanish:

« Amnistía Internacional lanza la campaña: Nada es igual si alguien desaparece » (Amnistía Internacional, 29 de agosto de 2017)

México: ONU-DH lanza campaña a favor de los derechos de las personas desaparecidas (ONU-DH, 30 de agosto de 2017)

Llama la ONU a México a reforzar la lucha contra desapariciones (La Jornada, 30 de agosto de 2017)

Desapariciones subsisten en México como consecuencia de la impunidad: CNDH (Proceso, 30 de agosto de 2017)

Urge en México una Ley General sobre Desaparición (CDHFBC, 30 de agosto de 2017)

Desapariciones forzadas en México, “crimen de Estado” (La Jornada, 31 de agosto de 2017)

For more information from SIPAZ :

Guerrero: Foro sobre desaparición forzada (22 de agosto de 2017)

Nacional: Amnistía Internacional presenta su informe anual sobre la situación de derechos humanos en el mundo. México, “en una de las peores crisis de derechos humanos y justicia” (3 de marzo de 2017)

Nacional : cierre de año legislativo con agenda polémica en el Congreso (8 de diciembre de 2016)

Guerrero: Forum on Forced Disappearance

Photo: @SIPAZ

On August 8th and 9th, in the framework of the 23rd anniversary of the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center, the Forum on forced disappearance entitled “Against Pain and Fear: A Cry of Hope” took place in Chilpancingo.

On this occasion, expert on forced disappearance, representatives of international and national organizations, as well as committees and relatives of missing persons participated to discuss the General Law on Forced Disappearances and Disappearances by Individuals and, and also to share their experiences and strengthen themselves with them in order to continue to search to find their loved ones alive.

The draft General Law on forced disappearances is the result of a proposal issued in 2015 by a large group of representatives of families of missing persons, civil society organizations, and academics with extensive experience in various human rights issues. Together they produced a document entitled “Essential Elements for the Development of the General Law on Missing Persons in Mexico” to guide the Mexican authorities on how to effectively implement a General Law to regulate the situation of missing persons in Mexico. The authors of this document are the protagonists of change, the fight for life and justice to find the whereabouts of their loved ones, reveal the truth, obtain a comprehensive reparation, prevent further disappearances in the country and end the pain which oppresses them.

 For more information in Spanish:

OPINIÓN | Lucha contra la desaparición forzada: un grito de esperanza (Centro de derechos humanos de la montaña Tlachinollan, a 10 de agosto de 2017)

Lucha contra la desaparición forzada: un grito de esperanza (La Jornada, a 09 de agosto de 2017)

http://www.animalpolitico.com/2017/05/ley-desaparicion-forzada/ (Animal Político, a 2 de mayo de 2017)

http://www.proceso.com.mx/486192/descorazonadora-ley-desaparicion-forzada

Guerrero: Possible Breakthrough in Ayotzinapa Case

Photo@:SIPAZ

On July 5th, the correspondent for La Jornada in Guerrero, Sergio Ocampo said that, “in La Gavia … the unknown whereabouts of the 43 students of the Normal School of Ayotzinapa, who disappeared in Iguala in September 2014, could be revealed.”

Sergio Ocampo explained that the self-defense groups of the Movement for Peace of San Miguel Totolapan stated that, “between December 2016 and May 2017 they detained several members of Raybel Jacobo de Almonte, El Tequilero’s, gang, among them was a small group of gunmen who are nicknamed “The Matanormalists” [the Student Teacher Killers] […] They claim that under interrogation the killers told how they took about twenty young presumed student teachers in batches, from the municipality of Cocula, adjacent to the one of Iguala, through several towns until arriving at La Gavia, between the night of the 26th and the morning of September 27th, 2014, where they were murdered and buried. […] They even claimed they could point to the exact spot where they were buried.”

According to Sin Embargo, the parents of the 43 disappeared students from Ayotzinapa Normal School and their lawyer Vidulfo Rosales Sierra asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Mexican State during the hearing of the Special Follow-up Mechanism The IACHR in Lima, Peru, to open a new line of investigation on this version of Cocula on July 6th.

 For more information in Spanish:

La Gavia, posible clave del caso Ayotzinapa (La Jornada, a 5 de julio 2017)

Nueva pista del paradero de los 43 de Ayotzinapa en México (TeleSur, a 5 de julio de 2017)

Guerrero: periodistas recorren la ex “guarida” el ‘El Tequilero’, observan pueblo fantasma y hallan camioneta robada (Aristegui Noticias, a 6 de julio de 2017)

Padres de los 43 piden investigar si a sus hijos se los entregaron a “Los Tequileros” (SinEmbargo, a 14 de julio de 2017)

 For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: Sesión de seguimiento de la CIDH del caso Ayotzinapa : avances nulos (10 de julio de 2017)

Guerrero/ Nacional: Madres y padres de los 43 consideran no acudir a la reunión con la PGR y la CIDH (20 de abril de 2017)

Guerrero : padres de los 43 participan en audiencia de la CIDH (22 de marzo de 2017)

Guerrero: Relatives Organize Protests 34 Months after Ayotzinapa Tragedy

March for Justice for Ayotzinapa student teachers. Photo@: SIPAZ

July 26, 2017, marked 34 months since the forced disappearance of 43 students from the Raul Isidro Burgos Normal School in Ayotzinapa and the violent death of three others.

In a statement entitled “Listen to my voice, 43”, the mothers and fathers of the disappeared declared that they were “firm and dignified in the struggle for the presentation of our children alive.” They stated, “We are not scared or discouraged by the threats, repression and lies of the government.” In a march on the Paseo de la Reforma they reiterated to the Attorney General’s Office (PGR in its Spanish acronym) their demand that they follow the four lines of investigation that would lead them to the whereabouts of their children: 1. the Mexican Army, 2. Huitzuco, 3. cell phones and 4. the transfer of drugs from Iguala to Chicago as a motive for the crime.

In the statement they also called for a massive participation in the “Listen to my voice 43” days of protest to be held from September 15th to 26th, in several states of the Country “for the presentation of the 43 alive and thousands more, for justice for the murdered, for the freedom of political prisoners, for the abrogation of structural reforms, against the dispossession of our lands and natural assets and against the rising cost of living.”

 For more information in Spanish:

Pronunciamiento Escucha mi voz 43 (Comité de Padres y Madres de los 43 y Comité Estudiantil Ricardo Flores Magón de la Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos de Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, a 26 de julio de 2017)

Padres de los 43 exigen al gobierno de Peña deje de sostener la “verdad histórica” (Proceso , a 26 de julio de 2017)

Padres de los 43 marchan en la CDMX (La Jornada en línea, a 26 de julio de 2017)

Gobierno y organismos internacionales silencian caso Ayotzinapa (TeleSur, a 26 de julio de 2017)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: Sesión de seguimiento de la CIDH del caso Ayotzinapa : avances nulos (10 de julio de 2017)

Guerrero / Chiapas: Llega la Caravana de Ayotzinapa a San Cristóbal de las Casas (3 de julio de 2017)

Guerrero/ Nacional: Madres y padres de los 43 consideran no acudir a la reunión con la PGR y la CIDH (20 de abril de 2017)

Guerrero : padres de los 43 participan en audiencia de la CIDH (22 de marzo de 2017)