Guerrero/National: More Information Published on Role of Army in Ayotzinapa Case

@Cuartoscuro

The National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH in its Spanish acronym) has reported that it has corroborated a link between organized crime and the Mexican government in the forced disappearance of the 43 students of the Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Guerrero, on September 26th, 2014. In addition, the Commission has declared that there was “connivance or collusion” between the local, state, and federal governments regarding the follow-up of the case. Additionally, the CNDH has indicated obstacles on the part of the authorities during its investigation that led to a series of recommendations at the end of 2018.

In December, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) in one of his first acts as the new president created by decree the Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in the Ayotzinapa case. On March 11th, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) presented the Technical Support Group (TSG) that will provide technical support to the Mexican authorities to arrive at the truth in the facts. In presenting the new work plan, the president of the IACHR and rapporteur of that agency for Mexico, Esmeralda Arosamena de Troitiño, applauded the position of the new federal authorities, which unlike the previous administration, have opened an impulse that represents “a historic opportunity to break impunity.” During the event, the Undersecretary of the Interior for Human Rights, Alejandro Encinas, remarked that the TSG will technically support all the open criminal investigation lines, which were not followed by the former Attorney General’s Office.

One of the most delicate in this sense is the role that the Mexican Army could have played in the events. On March 12th, a video was published that shows that Julio Cesar Lopez Patolzin, one of the 43 missing student teachers, had been recruited by the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA in its Spanish acronym) to infiltrate the Ayotzinapa School.

Faced with this, civil organizations accompanying the families of the 43 students declared that the video shows that the army “did not deliver or have given all the information it has about the Iguala case and its context (…) to more than four and a half years after the events.”

The second reason for concern, they said, is that it confirmed that SEDENA practices the infiltration of the Ayotzinapa School, which “does not delegitimize in any way the requirement of the relatives of Julio Cesar to know the whereabouts of their son.”

Finally, they stressed that this new material “confirms the urgent need for a thorough investigation into the role of the Armed Forces in this new phase” and that they provide “all information in their possession that is relevant to the full clarification of the whereabouts of the 43 students, as ordered in the presidential decree that instructed to establish effective material, legal and human conditions, to strengthen the human rights of the relatives of the victims of the Ayotzinapa case to the truth and access to justice, signed, among other authorities, by the President of the Republic, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of National Defense and the Secretary of the Navy.”

For more information in Spanish:

CNDH a ONU: “obstáculos y negativas” en caso Iguala (Milenio, 14 de marzo de 2019.)

Proceso y la historia del normalista-soldado infiltrado en Ayotzinapa (Proceso, 14 de marzo de 2019)

CNDH presenta recomendación por violaciones graves en caso Ayotzinapa (Excelsior, 13 de marzo de 2019.)

Normalista de Ayotzinapa desaparecido era infiltrado de la Sedena (VIDEO) (Radio Formula, 13 de marzo de 2019)

Un normalista de Ayotzinapa era militar e informante del Ejército: reporte (ADN Politico, 13 de marzo de 2019.)

Señalan necesidad de esclarecer papel del Ejército en caso Ayotzinapa SIDIDH, 13 de marzo de 2019.)

Abren, formalmente, nueva etapa de investigación por caso Ayotzinapa (La Jornada, 11 de marzo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

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)

Guerrero/National: Incoming Government Confirms Creation of Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case (Aug. 13th, 12018)

 

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International: IACHR Asks Honduras and Guatemala to Respect Human Rights

Photo @ BBC

On February 19th, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expressed its concern in a press release about the human rights situation of migrants and refugees that make up caravans that since January began to settle in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

The IACHR informed that they received information that members, mostly Hondurans, of a caravan, which is headed to Mexico and the United States, “faced various obstacles to leave their country, such as the establishment of at least seven roadblocks, blockades with human fences formed by agents of different security bodies, and filters implemented by the police that requested identity documents at the border checkpoint. Likewise, the use of force was recorded by the Honduran police, who allegedly fired tear gas towards the caravan, wounding several people, including children and adolescents (…) as a consequence, many people, including families and children, and girls, decided to avoid regular crossings, using more dangerous routes through blind spots.”

On the Guatemalan side of the border, they documented the use of force by Guatemalan authorities, “as well as the use of a riot police barrier with batons, rubber bullets and weapons, which only gave way to women with children.”

In the communiqué they reminded the Honduran and Guatemalan states, “that any person has the right to freely leave any country, including their own, in terms of Article 22.2 of the American Convention on Human Rights. Likewise, the impossibility of leaving their country may also imply a restriction on the right to seek and receive asylum, in accordance with the provisions of Article 22.7 of the American Convention.”

In addition “that the use of force in migratory operations should be used only in compliance with the principles of legitimate purpose, absolute necessity and proportionality; and that migrants do not pose a threat to national security and that the human rights of migrants and refugees are guaranteed, including the right to seek and receive asylum, the right to non-repatriation.”

In this regard, the Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants of the IACHR noted: “Today more than ever we must remember that migration is not a crime. The massive migratory movements that we have been observing for several years are a reflection of the situation of generalized violence, discrimination, poverty and inequality faced by people in a greater situation of exclusion in the countries of the Northern Triangle.”

For more information in Spanish:

CIDH insta a garantizar derechos de personas que integran la caravana de migrantes y refugiados en Honduras y Guatemala (CIDH, 19 de febrero de 2019)

CIDH insta a Guatemala y Honduras a garantizar derechos de migrantes (24-horas, 20 de febrero de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

International/National: Registration of Humanitarian Visas for Migrants Closes
(February 12th, 2019)

International/Mexico: Xenophobic Violence Erupts Against Migrants in Tecun Uman
(February 1st, 2019)

National/International: New Migrant Caravans Arrive at Border; Others Advance through Mexico (January 28th, 2019)

National/International: New Migrant Caravan Reaches Mexico (January 23rd, 2019)

National/International: 181 Countries Approve United Nations Global Pact for Refugees

(January 4th, 2019)

National/International: 164 Countries Approve UN Global Migration Pact (January 2nd, 2019)

 

National: Indigenous Win Injunction against Formation of National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) Due to Lack of Consultation

INPI launch event (@gob.mx)

On January 18th, the indigenous people of El Contadero, in the Mayoralty of Cuajimalpa in Mexico City, won an injunction that had been filed against the decree through which the Law was created that allowed the formation of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI in its Spanish acronym) last December.

This community argued that none of its members was summoned by the Congress of the Union or other instances of the State to participate in a prior, free and informed consultation according to the terms of Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) to give the consent to the Law for the creation of the INPI, something to which the Mexican State is obliged whenever it foresees legislative and administrative measures likely to affect them, and this having ratified several national instruments in the matter.

“The supposed ‘consultation’ of the Federal Legislative Power was regional, not private, and merely informative, abstract and diffuse, without adhering to the criteria of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,” the indigenous people stressed, who also expressed that “the INPI Law is in dissonance (because it imposes and does not propose) with the stance set by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on July 1st, 2018 in terms that the dissenters remember now: we will listen to everyone, we will attend to everyone, we will respect everyone, but we will give preference to more humble and forgotten, especially indigenous peoples.” The Contadero demanded the regulation the indigenous rights and establishment bases of dialogue.

For more information in Spanish:

Admite juez amparo contra la ley que crea el Instituto Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (La Jornada, 23 de enero de 2019)

Admite juez amparo contra la ley que crea el Instituto Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (NSS Oaxaca, 23 de enero de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Oaxaca/National: Federal Government Presents National Program for Indigenous Peoples
(January 14th, 2019)

National: Consultations on National Institute for Indigenous Peoples to Begin (November 7th, 2018)

Nacional : AMLO anuncia estructura y responsable de asuntos indígenas en su gobierno (August 18th, 2018)

 

Guerrero/National: Caravan 43 “Hope is Reborn”

(@El Sur)

From December 19th to 26th, fathers and mothers of the 43 students of the Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Guerrero, missing since September 2014, caravan 43, Hope is Reborn, within the framework of the 51st Global Action, which began in Tixtla, Guerrero, passed through Morelos, and ended at the Basilica of Guadalupe, Mexico City.

They denounced that 51 months have elapsed since the forced disappearance of their relatives without any result being achieved. They asked for justice in their case, in the case of political prisoners, the thousands of disappeared in Mexico, and the constant violations of human rights in the country. Several civil and social organizations also joined these protests.

Caravan 43 “Hope is Reborn” was named in this way because of the possibility that the new government led by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) will return the disappeared. “The idea is to continue touring and informing that the former administration of former President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, tried to bury the Ayotzinapa case and impose the historical truth”, said the spokesman of the parents of the 43 missing teachers, Meliton Ortega. He warned that despite the fact that the “new government has signed a decree, we want to say that it is not enough and it is necessary to go beyond the signing of a simple document; we need them to advance each of the lines [of investigation] until we know the truth and the whereabouts of the 43.”

For more information in Spanish:

Finalizan protestas de la 51 Acción Global por los 43 en la Basílica de Guadalupe (La Jornada, 27 de diciembre de 2018)

Padres de los 43 van a la Basílica; el obispo Rangel los recibe y en una misa pide saber la verdad y justicia (El Sur, 27 de diciembre de 2018)

Llega a Iguala la caravana 43 La Esperanza Renace, en el segundo día de actividades (La Jornada Guerrero, 21 de diciembre de 2018)

Llega a Taxco la Caravana 43 La Esperanza Renace, de normalistas (La Jornada Guerrero, 21 de diciembre de 2018)

Llega a Iguala la caravana de lucha por los 43 desaparecidos; demanda castigo a Peña Nieto (El Sur, 21 de diciembre de 2018)

Padres de los 43 inician caravana La Esperanza Renace en Tixtla (Quadratin Guerrero, 19 de diciembre de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

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)

Guerrero/National: Incoming Government Confirms Creation of Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case (Aug. 13th, 12018)

Guerrero/National: Obstruction in Formation of Truth Commission in Ayotzinapa Case Denounced (Aug. 8th, 2018)

Guerrero: Classmates of Ayotzinapa 43 Graduate (Aug. 2nd, 2018)

Guerrero/National: Federal Court Orders Creation Truth Commission to Reopen Investigation of Ayotzinapa Case (July 12th, 2018)

 

National/International: Inter-American Court Rules Mexico Responsible for Sexual Torture of Women in Atenco

(@Centro ProDH)

On December 21st, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) determined that the Mexican State was responsible for the sexual torture of which 11 women were victims during a 2006 police operation in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico State.

It should be recalled that on May 3rd and 4th, 2006, police forces carried out an operation in San Salvador Atenco supposedly to “re-establish order” during a series of protests by the inhabitants over the construction of an airport. More than 200 people were arrested during the raids. 50 of them were women, 31 of whom later reported sexual assaults by the police.

“The use of force by the police authorities when arresting them was not legitimate or necessary, but it was also excessive and unacceptable due to the sexual and discriminatory nature of the aggressions suffered. The Court concluded that the indiscriminate use of force by the State in this case, as a result of an absence of adequate regulation, a lack of training of the agents, inefficient supervision and monitoring of the operation, and a misconception that violence of some justified the use of force against all”, the Court said.

It should be emphasized that the judgments of the IACHR are binding for Mexico, and therefore the State is obliged to comply with all the measures ordered by the Inter-American Court. The Miguel Agustin Pro Juárez Human Rights Center declared that, “with this historic sentence, the State has the possibility to put an end to impunity in the emblematic case of Atenco and to take concrete measures to prevent such violations of human rights from being reproduced in other contexts. The full and prompt compliance with the sentence announced by the Court today will be a clear sign of the new government’s commitment to human rights. Moreover, in a context in which the security model is under discussion in Mexico, with the intention of creating a militarized National Guard, the sentence issued by the Court in the Atenco case – as with the resolution published yesterday regarding the Alvarado case – obllige the Mexican Legislative Power to review the legislation that it intends to pass in light of the standards set by the Inter-American Court, which reinforce the perspective of citizen security of a civil nature and external supervision of security institutions.”

For more information in Spanish:

Comunicado MÉXICO ES RESPONSABLE POR TORTURA SEXUAL DE MUJERES EN ATENCO (Corte IDH, 21 de diciembre de 2018)

En sentencia histórica, Corte Interamericana ordena al Estado mexicano sancionar represión y tortura en Atenco (Centro ProDH, 21 de diciembre de 2018)

Ilegítimo e innecesario, el uso de la fuerza en Atenco: Corte Interamericana al notificar sentencia al Estado mexicano (Aristegui Noticias, 21 de diciembre de 2018)

Culpa Corte IDH al Estado por tortura de mujeres de Atenco (La Jornada, 21 de diciembre de 2018)

Responsabilidad internacional del Estado mexicano en actos de tortura contra 11 mujeres de Atenco: CoIDH (Proceso, 21 de diciembre de 2018)

Corte IDH: El Estado mexicano violó DDHH de mujeres en Atenco, cuando Peña gobernaba Edomex (Sin Embargo, 21 de diciembre de 2018)

CIDH responsabiliza al Estado por tortura sexual de 11 mujeres en Atenco (Radio Fórmula, 21 de diciembre de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National: Hearing of Cases of Sexual Torture in San Salvador Atenco at IACHR Court (November 29th, 2017)

Mexico: IACHR Demands Investigation into Case of Female Victims of Sexual Abuse in Atenco in 2006 (October 10th, 2016)

 

 

Chiapas: 21 Years Since the Massacre in Acteal

(@SIPAZ)

On December 21 and 22, 2018, members of the Civil Society Las Abejas de Acteal and guests commemorated the 21st anniversary of the Acteal massacre, which took place on December 22, 1997, in which 45 Tsotsil indigenous people, mainly women and children, members of Las Abejas, were murdered in Acteal, municipality of Chenalhó, by alleged paramilitaries. The massacre “was committed with fury, treachery, and premeditation when they [the victims] were in the second day of fasting and prayer for the end of the violence unleashed in the municipality”, remembered Las Abejas.

Las Abejas denounced that they have “gone through 21 years of darkness that represents the impunity nourished by the PRI and PAN rulers, including the misnamed and corrupt “Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation,” which ordered the release of the perpetrators of the Acteal Massacre, despite the fact that they were directly pointed out by the survivors and that they had confessed to killing in Acteal, for which they had sentences of up to 30 years, now they walk with impunity in Chenalhó and around Acteal. And the intellectual authors [of the massacre] are free, mocking justice and the memory of our massacred brothers and sisters”.

Las Abejas and the Fray Batolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) indicated that they are not seeking dialogue with the current government but announced that they will continue to speak up, so that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) can make a pronouncement on the merits of the case. Pedro Faro Navarro, director of Frayba, indicated that “for a long time the situation has been closed at the national level, since the Mexican State has not only refused to take legal action, but has attributed to impunity with the release of almost all of the perpetrators”. For their part, Las Abejas clarified that “we will not exchange justice for money in any way. The real objective of our petition before the IACHR is for the Mexican State to recognize its responsibility for action and its failure in the Acteal Massacre and to guarantee the non-repetition of acts like Acteal”.

For more information in Spanish:

Nuestro país ha vivido un patrón sistemático de represión, corrupción, colusión, impunidad desde los años 60’, hasta el día de hoy (Sociedad Civil Las Abejas, 22 de diciembre de 2018)

Acteal 21 años de impunidad (Frayba, 22 de diciembre de 2018)

Insiste Frayba en que CIDH se pronuncie sobre Acteal (La Jornada, 22 de diciembre de 2018)

A 21 años de la matanza de Acteal, familiares y sobrevivientes recuerdan a las 45 víctimas (Sin Embargo, 22 de diciembre de 2018)

Conmemoran 21 años de masacre de Acteal, la justicia aún pendiente(Regeneración, 22 de diciembre de 2018)

Abejas de Acteal anuncian que no buscaran diálogo con AMLO; esperan dictamen de la CIDH (AlertaChiapas, 22 de diciembre de 2018)

A once días de la conmemoración de la Masacre de Acteal, les compartimos cartel de dicho evento (Sociedad Civil Las Abejas de Acteal, 11 de diciembre de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: Twentieth Anniversary of Acteal Massacre (January 14, 2018).

Chiapas: Las Abejas de Acteal “Roots, Memory and Hope” Tour (July 28, 2017).

Chiapas: Launch of Acteal Campaign: Roots, Memory and Hope (March 30, 2017).

Guerrero/National: Decree Establishes Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case

(@SIPAZ)

On November 3rd, in one of his first actions as new president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) signed a decree that establishes the creation of a truth commission to resolve the case of the forced disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Normal Rural School, in Iguala, Guerrero, in September 2014.

“With this agreement, we began the search process for the youths of Ayotzinapa. With this decree the whole government is ordered, in what corresponds to the Executive Power, so that all the support is given to you, to the commission, to arrive at the truth. The whole government is going to help in this purpose”, AMLO told the parents of the missing students. He promised that, “there will be no impunity neither in this so sad, painful, case nor any other.”

The Commission which will start working within a maximum of 30 working days will be made up of the relatives of the disappeared students or their representatives, their lawyers, a representative of the Secretariats of the Interior, Foreign Affairs and Finance, as well as professional and technical experts who are required.

Alejandro Encinas, the new undersecretary of Human Rights of the Interior and who will lead the new Commission, said the Commission will resume the investigations carried out by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE), the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), as well as the “truncated” investigation of the PGR. “To clarify the case is the beginning of a state policy that places the victims at the center,” assured Encinas.

At the end of the event, family members of the students expressed that the decree gives them hope, although “confidence will be gained as the search for the truth advances”. For his part, Vidulfo Rosales, a member of the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center and a lawyer for the relatives of the victims, welcomed the inauguration of a “new stage in the struggle and the search for the 43 compañeros, but this is only the the beginning, all the invstigation lines that the Peña Nieto government did not want to promote and which remained stagnant will be retaken.” Santiago Aguirre, deputy director of the Pro Center, stressed that the decree instructs the entire federal administration to collaborate in the clarification of the facts, “given that in the past, the federal government obstructed the process.”

Outside the National Palace, some parents of missing persons protested because they were not allowed to enter the event and demanded that immediate mechanisms of search and investigation be applied in all cases of disappearance, not only Ayotzinapa.

According to Alberto Solis Castro, director of Services and Consultancy for Peace (SERAPAZ), resolving this emblematic case “can be a spearhead and hope for all of the over 30,000 disappeared in the country. It is a first effort of that must be turned into something structural to address the serious human rights crisis we are in.”

For more information in Spanish:

AMLO presidente: ¿qué cambia con la Comisión de la Verdad creada por López Obrador para aclarar el caso de los 43 estudiantes desaparecidos de Ayotzinapa? (BBC Mundo, 3 de diciembre de 2018)

Decreto de AMLO, ¿nueva esperanza para padres de los 43 de Ayotzinapa? (CNN, 3 de diciembre de 2018)

Crea AMLO Comisión de la Verdad por caso Ayotzinapa (La Jornada, 3 de diciembre de 2018)

López Obrador formaliza comisión para la verdad y justicia del caso Ayotzinapa (Proceso, 3 de diciembre de 2018)

AMLO firma decreto de creación de la comisión para el caso Ayotzinapa; retomará investigación de PGR (Animal Político, 3 de diciembre de 2018)

¿Qué implica el decreto para la Comisión de la Verdad en el caso Ayotzinapa? (ADN Político, 4 de diciembre de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

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

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

Guerrero/National: Incoming Government Confirms Creation of Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case (Aug. 13th, 12018)

Guerrero/National: Obstruction in Formation of Truth Commission in Ayotzinapa Case Denounced (Aug. 8th, 2018)Guerrero: Classmates of Ayotzinapa 43 Graduate

Guerrero: Classmates of Ayotzinapa 43 Graduate (Aug. 2nd, 2018)

Guerrero/National: Federal Court Orders Creation Truth Commission to Reopen Investigation of Ayotzinapa Case (July 12th, 2018)

Guerrero/Nacional : CNDH informa que se tiene a un preso inocente por el caso Ayotzinapa (22 de junio de 2018)

Guerrero/Nacional/Internacional : Llamados a redigirir investigación en el caso Ayotzinapa (14 de junio de 2018)