Guerrero: New Stage in Investigation of Ayotzinapa Case – Creation of Special Investigation Unit with Omar Gomez Trejo as Head

Photo @ teleSUR

On June 26th, Agreement A/010/19 was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, with which the Special Investigation and Litigation Unit for the Ayotzinapa case was created.

“The agreement establishes that the Special Unit will be responsible for the investigation and prosecution of the crimes committed in Iguala, Guerrero, in September 2014, until the conclusion of all the criminal proceedings related to the events that led to the disappearance of the 43 students from the ‘Raúl Isidro Burgos’ Normal School.”

On the same day, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR in its Spanish acronym) reported that the teacher Omar Gomez Trejo would occupy the ownership of the new unit.

“For the relatives of the disappeared students and for the organizations that accompany them, the announcement means the beginning of a new stage in the criminal investigation (…) in particular, the appointment of the new head is a reason for hope.” This is due to his knowledge of the case and his long career in human rights organizations.

As a first initiative, the head of the Special Unit for Investigation and Litigation of the FGR and the Commission for Truth and Access to Justice for the Ayotzinapa case, agreed to design a work plan to guarantee progress such as, “the integration of all the archives of investigation linked to the case and that, depending directly on the Attorney General, would guarantee substantive progress in the investigation and clarification of the Ayotzinapa case”, the Government Secretariat stated.

For more information in Spanish:

Inician nueva etapa en investigación del caso Ayotzinapa (Aristegui Noticias, 28 de junio de 2019)

Omar Gómez se reúne con unidad especial del Caso Ayotzinapa (Milenio, 28 de junio de 2019)

Comunicado FGR 313/19 Se crea por Acuerdo, Unidad Especial de Investigación y Litigación para el caso Ayotzinapa (Fiscalía General de la República, 26 de junio de 2019)

Familiares y organizaciones saludan inicio de una nueva etapa en la investigación del caso Ayotzinapa (Tlachinollan, 28 de junio de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National/Guerrero: VIDEO of Torture in Ayotzinapa Case Belies “Historic Truth” (June 27, 2019)

Guerrero: Attorney General and SEDENA Denounced for Lack of Interest in Solving Ayotzinapa Case (May 17, 2019)

Guerrero/National: More Information Published on Role of Army in Ayotzinapa Case (March 15, 2019)

Guerrero/National: Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in Ayotzinapa Case Set Up. Federal Judge Orders Investigation into Possible Responsibility of Attorney General Employees for Irregularities (January 22nd, 2019)

Guerrero/National: Decree Establishes Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case (December 19th, 2018)

Guerrero/National/International: CNDH and IACHR Ayotzinapa Reports (December 14th, 2018)

Guerrero/National: Ayotzinapa, Four Years On… (October 1st, 2018)

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National/Guerrero: VIDEO of Torture in Ayotzinapa Case Belies “Historic Truth”

@nytimes

In recent days, a video showing acts of torture against Carlos Canto Salgado during his detention in the case of Ayotzinapa was made public by several media outlets.

According to information from Aristegui Noticias, “Canto was arrested by elements of the Federal Ministerial Police and the Secretariat of the Navy (SEMAR in its Spanish acronym); his case is one of 34 cases in which the UNHR found “strong elements of conviction” that indicate the commission of acts of torture, in addition to other human rights violations.”

“In response to accusations like that of the UN, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR in its Spanish) – now the Attorney General of the Republic – denied having built the so-called “historical truth” based on torture and affirmed that it only verified vexations in two cases,” different human rights centers reported. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the Attorney General’s Office to relaunch the investigation of the case, as well as to definitively dismiss the so-called “historical truth”.

The video “confirms that the investigation of the disappearance of the student teachers resorted to practices that violated human rights” and shows “that the internal investigation of the officials who have diverted and obstructed justice is pending.”

It should be recalled that the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH in its Spanish acronym) in its recommendation on Ayotzinapa regarding Canto Salgado “expressly concluded that there was no evidence that he had been subjected to asphyxiation or electric shocks, despite the abundance of evidence and despite the repeated complaint of the detainee himself.” The video also proves that the CNDH “covered up this practice with a recommendation that is not reliable”, the organizations SERAPAZ, Tlachinollan, Fundar and CentroProdh indicated.

“It is time to break the chain of complicity and cover-ups around the Ayotzinapa case, and to focus the Mexican State’s efforts on truth and justice for all those involved with strict adherence to human rights,” said Jan Jarab, representative of the UNHR in Mexico.

For more information in Spanish:

ONU pide nueva investigación de caso Ayotzinapa tras video de tortura de detenido (Aristegui Noticias, 24 de junio de 2019)

Video de tortura comprueba inacción de gobierno en caso Ayotzinapa: ONU (Milenio, 24 de junio de 2019)

Video confirma tortura en caso Ayotzinapa y acredita encubrimiento de CNDH: OSC (23 de junio de 2019)

Ayotzinapa: video demuestra uso impune de la tortura en la investigación (Comunicado de Prensa, 23 de junio de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: Attorney General and SEDENA Denounced for Lack of Interest in Solving Ayotzinapa Case (May 17, 2019)

Guerrero/National: More Information Published on Role of Army in Ayotzinapa Case (March 15, 2019)

Guerrero/National: Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in Ayotzinapa Case Set Up. Federal Judge Orders Investigation into Possible Responsibility of Attorney General Employees for Irregularities (January 22nd, 2019)

Guerrero/National: Decree Establishes Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case (December 19th, 2018)

Guerrero/National/International: CNDH and IACHR Ayotzinapa Reports (December 14th, 2018)

Guerrero/National: Ayotzinapa, Four Years On… (October 1st, 2018)

National: Absence of President Lopez Obrador at Presentation of CNDH Report “Disheartening for the Defense of Human Rights”

Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez (@Tribuna)

At a press conference held on June 3rd, the president of the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH in its Spanish acronym), Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez, lamented that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, had not found a space in his agenda to receive personally the 2018 annual report of the agency’s activities. This occurred for the first time in the history of the CNDH (which is almost 29 years old) when, in general, an official ceremony was organized in the presence of the president, representatives of civil organizations, and other officials.

The ombudsman reported that, despite the repeated requests of the CNDH to have an event of this nature, the federal government responded that the report would be submitted in writing to the Secretary of the Interior, Olga Sanchez Cordero, which occurred on the same day as the conference.

Gonzalez Perez lamented that “facts, actions and omissions are beginning to accumulate that, taken as a whole, would make us suppose that seeking the validity of human rights is not being taken on as a premise and limit of all public actions, nor are they adopting relevant measures to reverse the situation that, for several years, our country has faced in various areas.” He affirmed that the previous format, “opened a direct and immediate space so that the CNDH could present before the Federal Executive an annual report on the situation of the same, as well as to reflect, prospectively, on the challenges and situations that demanded special attention for the year in progress, issues that in this 2019 could not materialize, having not generated a space for human rights to be heard.”

Anyway, the ombudsman presented the report of activities 2018 that highlights several areas of concern. In the health sector, and in references to the austerity measures taken by the government, he stressed that, “there are areas in which the allocation of public resources cannot only depend on economic calculations or administrative weights, such as public health services.” He emphasized that, “weakening or rendering public health systems inoperative implies a violation of human rights.”

In terms of security and justice, and after referring to homicides, the head of the CNDH stressed that the outlook “is also far from positive, unless there is a radical change in the approach and magnitude of the institutional response to problems and security needs of people.” He also spoke of “the need to address the crisis that Mexico is experiencing in terms of violence and insecurity, under a comprehensive approach, based on a strategy that prioritizes prevention and is not limited to the rethinking of an eminently reactive body, as is the National Guard, as well as the increase of the crimes to which the mandatory preventive prison would be applicable.”

In the areas of concern, he also mentioned femicides, attacks against journalists and human rights defenders, and disappearances, among others. Gonzalez Perez reported that in 2018 the CNDH issued 101 recommendations, 90 of them ordinary, eight for serious violations and three general ones.

For more information in Spanish:

Lamenta González Pérez que AMLO no acepte conocer informe de CNDH (La Jornada, 3 de junio de 2019)

AMLO no escucha informe de la CNDH; “es un hecho inédito en 29 años”: González Pérez (Aristegui Noticias, 3 de junio de 2019)

“Desalentador”, que AMLO se negara a recibir en ceremonia oficial el informe anual de CNDH: ombudsman (Proceso, 3 de junio de 2019)

CNDH reprocha a AMLO por no dar prioridad a derechos, ataques a contrapesos y recortes en Salud (Animal Político, 3 de junio de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National/International: CNDH Requests Special Measures for Migrants (May 8, 2019)

National: NGOs, Activists and CNDH Insist on Necessity that National Guard Be “Truly Civil” (April 8, 2019)

Chiapas/Nacional : emite CNDH recomendaciones a autoridades de Chiapas por desplazamientos forzados en Chalchihuitán y Chenalhó (January 18, 2019)

Nacional/Chiapas: Emite CNDH recomendación al anterior titular de Sedena (December 18, 2018)

Guerrero/National/International: CNDH and IACHR Ayotzinapa Reports (December 14, 2018)

National/International: UNO and IACHR Warn of Situation of Human Rights Defenders in Latin America. At Least Ten Murdered in Mexico

@El Economista

In a statement published on May 30th, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the United Nations (UN) expressed their concern facing an increase in acts of violence committed against human rights defenders in Latin America during the first four months of the year.

In the case of Mexico, this trend is notorious where “according to information available to both agencies, at least ten human rights defenders were murdered during this period, nine men and a woman, a figure close to at least 13 cases documented throughout the year 2018, which represents a significant increase in violence. It is especially worrying that eight of the murdered defenders are indigenous.” They listed several of the cases and also expressed their concern over the disappearance of Obtilia Eugenio Manuel and Hilario Cornelio Castro, in Guerrero from February 12th to February 19th, “until they were released by their captors after an intense search campaign.”

The two multilateral organizations acknowledged that “in Mexico the federal government has publicly committed to strengthen the action of the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, initiating a diagnosis on the current situation in which the UN Human Rights participates.”

They recalled that it is “the obligation of the states to investigate ex officio facts of this nature and to punish those responsible materially and intellectually. Both agencies urge the states to exhaust all relevant lines of investigation to clarify these facts, including the possible link between murders, disappearances and other aggressions and the work of defending human rights. Such investigations must be conducted with due diligence, in a thorough, serious and impartial manner.” They also stressed that in the case of women human rights defenders and groups in a situation of special vulnerability, “States must take due account of the fact that the inherent risk of their work is compounded by the context of discrimination based on gender or belonging to historically discriminated groups and adopt protection measures and conduct research with full incorporation of the gender and intercultural perspective. States must adopt reasonable measures to prevent acts of violence against persons of these groups and remedy the context of discrimination that promotes their repetition.”

For more information in Spanish:

CIDH y las Oficinas de ONU Derechos Humanos expresan su preocupación por la situación de personas defensoras de derechos humanos en el primer cuatrimestre del año (CIDH/OMU, 30 de mayo de 2019)

Alertan CIDH y ONU por aumento de asesinatos de activistas en México (Proceso, 30 de mayo de 2019)

Aumentaron asesinatos de activistas en México este año, alertan ONU y CIDH (LA Jornada, 30 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National/International: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Visits Mexico (April 11, 2019)

National: Consultative Council on Mechanism for Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists (April 11, 2019)

National / International: UN-DH denounces that 10 Human Rights Defenders have been murdered in Mexico until now in 2018 (September 21, 2018)

Oaxaca: FGR and SEDENA Dispute Search for EPR Disappeared

Photo @ La Jornada

On May 25th, 2019, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR in its Spanish acronym) and the National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA in its Spanish acronym) challenged the sentence which favored the families of the victims of forced disappearance Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sanchez, both militant social fighters of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR in its Spanish acronym). By order of the Judicial Power of the Nation a search commission for both of the disappeared for 12 years was to be created, “as well as the appearance of all the public officials who could have been involved in the events and the opening of military barracks to make inquiries”, La Jornada recalled.

Family members and civil society organizations, who accompany their cases, declared in a press conference on the same day that “the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador demonstrates the lack of political will to comply with the aforementioned resolution.”

Sandino Rivero, legal counsel for both families, stressed that the families and the accompanying organizations will maintain a sit-in in the Zocalo of the City of Oaxaca for an indefinite period of time, until they are addressed by the heads of the Interior and Human Rights (Olga Sanchez Cordero and Alejandro Encinas respectively), with whom they had already requested to have negotiation tables.

For more information in Spanish:

FGR y Sedena impugnan creación de comisión por desaparición forzada (La Jornada, 25 de mayo de 2019)

Impugnan FGR y Sedena sentencia a favor de desaparecidos (eje central, 25 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Oaxaca: Order to Open Army Barracks in Search for EPR Members Disappeared in 2007 (May 16, 2019)

Oaxaca: Search for EPR Members Missing for 11 Years on State Properties (August 21, 2018)

Chiapas: National Day: “The Victims of State Terrorism are of the People, We will not Stop until We Find Them!” (March 15, 2017)

Chiapas: “Jornada nacional contra el terrorismo del estado en Chiapas” del FNLS (May 2, 2016)

Nacional/Oaxaca/Chiapas: Gira nacional: desaparición forzada en México (March 6, 2015)

National: Civil Commission for Pursuit and Search for two disappeared members of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) denounces lack of progress (September 29, 2014)

National: 337 Unidentified Bodies in 222 Clandestine Graves

@ Regeneracion

On May 14th in his morning press conference, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) and the Undersecretary for Human Rights, Population and Migration, Alejandro Encinas, reported that since the beginning of the current administration, the authorities have identified 222 clandestine graves at 81 sites in which presumably the skeletal remains of 337 bodies were found in 17 states. Veracruz, Sonora, Sinaloa, Guerrero, Colima and Nayarit are the entities in which the greatest number of discoveries were recorded. “Although it hurts, we need to know what really happened and unfortunately continues to happen because you cannot, overnight, end these inheritances of insecurity and violence,” AMLO said and described the preceding years as “a very sad period for Mexico”.

President Lopez Obrador stressed that it will start a 500-million-peso budget for the search tasks but said that this amount would be expanded if necessary. New measures were announced such as an update in the process of the National Registry of Missing Persons and the integration of the National Register of Graves, created by the current administration in coordination with the Undersecretary of Human Rights, with the National Search Commission, the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic, state prosecutors and victim groups. Alejandro Encinas also announced that a National Forensic Diagnostic is being developed and that a report on the registration of clandestine graves, bodies and sites will be delivered every two weeks to the public security cabinet, verifying the information coming from the prosecutor’s offices. “Although this is a phenomenon that has been in the country for many years, the information was always hidden or minimized. However, it was sent to the marasmus of statistical data, where the data of forced disappearance or disappearance by individuals were mixed with the data of homicides committed every day”, he said.

Civil society organizations expressed their approval for the presentation of the first National Registry of Clandestine and Mass Graves. They made their methods and information public, and made a series of recommendations for the next steps in the preparation of the registry asking for “transparency” and “generating certainty in the figures: the main problem that have faced organizations is the lack of rigor that exists on the part of the State in terms of figures on graves. The same authority reports contradictory information with itself and with other institutions. This generates mistrust regarding the figures and the methodologies used to prepare them.” They called for citizen participation to be promoted: “in this subject of public interest it is essential to guarantee public scrutiny in the construction of information sources.”

For more information in Spanish:

Suman 222 fosas en cinco meses; son herencia de una política equivocada: AMLO (Proceso, 14 de mayo de 2019)

Identifican 337 cuerpos en 222 fosas clandestinas (La Jornada, 14 de mayo de 2019)

Encinas reporta 222 fosas clandestinas y 337 cuerpos sin identificar (Regeneración, 14 de mayo de 2019)

Organizaciones de la sociedad civil ofrecen al Gobierno federal su información sobre fosas clandestinas
(Centro PRODH, 15 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ: National: Mothers Demand Whereabouts of their Disappeared on 7th National March for Dignity (May 16, 2019)

National/International: Movement for Our Disappeared Calls for Special Mechanism for Forensic Identification and High-level Meeting with IACHR (May 15, 2019)

National/Guerrero: Disappearances Increasing in Mexico – CNDH. No Progress in Victor Ayala Tapia Case (May 11, 2019)

National/International: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Visits Mexico (April 11, 2019)

Nacional/Internacional:
Centro Pro DH urge a Relaciones Exteriores a aceptar competencia del
Comité sobre Desaparición Forzada de la ONU (March 20, 2019)

 

 

 

Guerrero: Attorney General and SEDENA Denounced for Lack of Interest in Solving Ayotzinapa Case

On May 14th, during a protest by the parents of the 43 disappeared students of the Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa in Iguala in 2014, it was reported that in “five months of government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the Ayotzinapa case continues stalled because the FGR and the SEDENA have no interest in solving it.”

The spokesperson for the parents, Meliton Ortega Garcia, urged the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR in its Spanish acronym) to appoint the special prosecutor for the Iguala case and the National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA in its Spanish acronym) to deliver the evidence and information they have in their possession about the attack on the the students.

According to Vidulfo Rosales Sierra, lawyer of the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center, “there is a commitment with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and with Undersecretary Alejandro Encinas, although there are federal government institutions that are not walking hand in hand with the instruction given by the head of state, such as the FGR, which to date has not designated the Special Prosecutor for the Ayotzinapa case. As long as the prosecutor is not named, there will be no investigation. The same happens with the Mexican Army, which has information, but we do not know which and the relevance it has.”

According to La Razon, the relatives of the disappeared are conducting a first day in search of information in Iguala and asked the population to join in a “manner of solidarity to deliver information that they have the whereabouts of their children and that they will reserve their right to anonymity”

For more information in Spanish:

Padres de los 43: FGR y Sedena sin disposición para aclarar el caso (La Jornada, 14 de mayo de 2019)

A la FGR y Sedena no les interesa resolver el caso Ayotzinapa: padres (La Razón, 11 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero/National: More Information Published on Role of Army in Ayotzinapa Case (March 15, 2019)

Guerrero/National: Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in Ayotzinapa Case Set Up. Federal Judge Orders Investigation into Possible Responsibility of Attorney General Employees for Irregularities (January 22nd, 2019)

Guerrero/National: Decree Establishes Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case (December 19th, 2018)

Guerrero/National/International: CNDH and IACHR Ayotzinapa Reports  (December 14th, 2018)

Guerrero/National: Ayotzinapa, Four Years On…  (October 1st, 2018)