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)

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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)

Oaxaca: Order to Open Army Barracks in Search for EPR Members Disappeared in 2007

On May 9th, the order of Judge Maria Dolores Nuñez Solorio, attached to the Fourth District Court for Injunction in Criminal Matters in Mexico City, was published and may be challenged within a period of ten days. The sentence urges the head of the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA in its Spanish acronym), Luis Cresencio Sandoval, to order the opening of the barracks and allow soldiers and officers to be interrogated on the case of the forced disappearance of the members of the People’s Army Revolutionary (EPR in its Spanish acronym) Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sanchez in Oaxaca, in May 2007. “The Secretary of National Defense, through all the members of the Army, must provide the necessary facilities to the federal prosecutor in charge of the integration of the investigation of origin, as well as to any authority that has the task of finding the whereabouts of the complainants”, the sentence states.

The Coordinator of the Committee Until They Are Found (Hasta Encontrarlos) and daughter of Reyes Amaya, Nadin Reyes Maldonado, considered that it would be possible for a commission of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office in Search of Disappeared Persons to enter the barracks, which would set a precedent for more relatives to seek refuge and seek their relatives there. “What we hope is that this government, which calls itself different, does not interpose resources to evade compliance with this ruling and that it begins to show will with concrete facts … that searches are made”, she said.

For the Cerezo Committee it is a judicial resolution with several scopes because it recognizes the forced disappearance for political reasons and the participation of the Armed Forces in those crimes, and because “it creates conditions so that other relatives of the disappeared do the same and do not demand less than what is happening with this resolution.”

For more information in Spanish:

Ordena juez buscar a los activistas Edmundo Reyes y Alberto Cruz (La Jornada, 12 de mayo de 2019)

Boletín sobre los DH de las Víctimas de VDH plasmados en la Sentencia del Amparo del Poder Judicial de la Federación en el caso de Edmundo Reyes y Alberto Cruz (Comité Cerezo, 13 de mayo de 2019)

Ordena una juez la apertura de cuarteles para buscar a eperristas desaparecidos (Proceso, 13 de mayo de 2019)

Jueza ordena abrir cuarteles militares para buscar a integrantes del EPR desaparecidos (Página3.mx, 13 de mayo de 2019)

Piden a FGR acatar sentencia y abrir cuarteles militares (Pie de página, 14 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

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: Mothers Demand Whereabouts of their Disappeared on 7th National March for Dignity

On May 10th, Mother’s Day in Mexico, thousands of mothers of missing persons marched, accompanied by national and international organizations, in several cities of the country, among others in Mexico City, Puebla, Colima, Morelos, Colima, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Guerrero, to demand justice.

In Mexico City, the VIII March for National Dignity arrived at the Angel of Independence, in the capital of the country, with the demand to put an end to the disappearances, the installation of state search committees and specialized prosecutor’s offices, and the creation of an International Extraordinary Mechanism on Forensic Identification in the case of the more than 26 thousand unidentified persons. The request list also included the strengthening of the National Search System, in which families of the victims, including those of migrants, participate; application of a reparations system with a human rights perspective “and not the administration of victims”; the implementation of the General Law on Disappearance in all states; guarantees for the proper functioning of the Foreign Support Mechanism for the search and investigation of cases of migrants who disappeared in Mexico, and for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to accept the competence of the UN Committee on Forced Disappearances (CFD) to analyze individual cases, among other demands.

“We do not want simulation, we will not endorse that they purge institutions when in reality they only recycle officials who are ignorant and responsible for the horror they should be fighting”, the women maintained, demanding from the current government “a State policy that recognizes truth and justice as urgent, necessary and non-negotiable.”

The representative of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), Jan Jarab, stressed that this date, which should be a day of joy, has become a day of mobilizations “a product of the tragedy that Mexico faces on regarding disappearance” with its more than 40 thousand disappeared. While acknowledging as a step forward a “change of attitude” in the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to have admitted the seriousness of the problem, Jarab warned that the emergency continues, so he urged the real construction of a search system throughout the country to “reduce the cloud of impunity.”

For more information in Spanish:

“Este día no es de fiesta”: Madres de desaparecidos marchan por justicia para sus hijos (Animal Político, 10 de mayo de 2019)

10 de Mayo en tiempos 4T: Madres de desaparecidos y su extenso pliego petitorio al Estado mexicano (Proceso, 10 de mayo de 2019)

El dolor por los hijos ausentes une a miles de madres por todo el país: unas marchan, otras buscan (Sin Embargo, 10 de mayo de 2019)

¿Dónde están nuestros hijos?, claman miles de madres en el país (La Jornada, 11 de mayo de 2019)

Otro amargo Día de las Madres en el México de los desaparecidos (CNN México, 11 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National/International: World Network of Mothers of Disappeared Migrants Formed in Mexico (November 12, 2018)

National / International: Caravan of mothers of disappeared migrants arrives in Mexico

(November 1st, 2018)

Nacional : madres de desparecidos marchan en el Día de la Madre(11 de mayo de 2018)

National/International: “Caravan of Mothers of Missing Migrants” Arrives to Mexico

(December 27th, 2017)

México : Caravana de Madres de Migrantes Desaparecidos “buscando vida en caminos de muerte” (25 de noviembre de 2016)