National/International: Centro Pro DH Urges Foreign Ministry to Accept UN Committee on Forced Disappearance

In a statement published on March 19th, the Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center (Centro Pro DH in its Spanish acronym) reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE in its Spanish acronym) filed an appeal for review of an injunction ruling in favor of Maria Herrera Magdaleno and Juan Carlos Trujillo Herrera, mother and brother of the disappeared Raul, Salvador, Luis Armando and Gustavo Trujillo Herrera (in 2008 and 2010), the woman who called on the Foreign Ministry to decide on the acceptance of the expansion of the competence of the Committee against Enforced Disappearances of United Nations (CED) in individual cases in a period of 60 calendar days. She declared that this decision would allow “thousands of relatives of victims of disappearance to raise their cases with this international body.”

She said that the Foreign Ministry appealed the sentence stating that “it invades the sphere of competence of the Executive Power and that establishes a right that in its opinion does not exist: access to International Justice, in addition to granting a very short period to conclude the term of acknowledgment of competence of the CED Committee to hear about individual cases.”

The Centro Pro DH considered that this decision “represents a missed opportunity for the government of Mexico to recognize the competence of the CED Committee and to continue to demonstrate its commitment to human rights and international scrutiny.” It filed a motion for review again urging the Foreign Ministry to recognize this competence to hear individual cases in Mexico, “in line with the recognition that this administration has made on the grave humanitarian crisis the country is experiencing.”

It should be recalled that just on March 14th, the Mexican State accepted 262 of the 264 recommendations made in the framework of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), also from the UN. 25 of them are related to the problem of forced disappearances, and one of them being the admission of the competence of the CED Committee to analyze individual cases.

For more information in Spanish:

Poder Judicial resolverá sobre competencia del Comité contra Desapariciones Forzadas de ONU (Comunicado de prensa del Centro de Derechos Humanos Agustín Pro DH, 19 de marzo de 20199

Prodh pide a la SRE aceptar competencia de comité de la ONU ante crisis de desapariciones (Proceso, 19 de marzo de 2019)

Cancillería se niega a reconocer competencia de casos de desaparición forzada ante la ONU (Heraldo de México, 19 de marzo de 2019)

Piden a SRE aceptar competencia de ONU sobre desapariciones en México (Aristegui Noticias, 19 de marzo de 2019)

La SRE no admite la competencia de Naciones Unidas en desapariciones (La Jornada, 20 de marzo de 2019)

Para más información de SIPAZ: 

National/International: Mexico Accepts 262 of 264 UN Recommendations from 2018 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) (March 21, 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 22, 2019)

International/National: Mexico’s 2018 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) (November 14, 2018)

Advertisements

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)

 

National: Presentation of ‘Emergent Plan to Guarantee the Integrity, Security and Life of Women and Girls in Mexico”

On March 6th, the ‘Emergent Plan to Guarantee the Integrity, Safety and Life of Women and Girls in Mexico’ was presented, which outlines the main strategies that the new government intends to implement towards prevention, attention, sanction and eradication of violence against this sector of the population.

The Secretary of the Interior, Olga Sanchez, said that this plan will be the starting point to intervene “in a decisive and prompt way in the fight against any practice of violence that threatens the rights, integrity and life of women.” “All of them are united by a common factor: the lack of timely and diligent intervention of the Mexican State to preserve its integrity and to ensure their lives,” she said.

Among the main actions proposed by the Plan are: seeking greater coordination between the different levels of the Republic and the states that can play a role in the prevention, attention, sanction and eradication of violence; making modifications to the General Law on Women’s Access to a Life Free of Violence in order to prevent, investigate, punish and repair the damage to victims to make it effective; implementing campaigns on the right of women to a life free of violence; monitoring the incidence of crime and acts of violence, mainly disappearances, sexual violence, family violence and femicides; promoting safe cities and spaces free of violence, and creating mobile applications and Web pages to identify high-risk areas; sanctions to those who are omitted or act with negligence; establish a unique penal code to homologize femicide throughout the country, among others.

Some of the actions mentioned will be implemented immediately while others could take up to six months to implement due to their complexity, said the director of Inmujeres, Nadine Gasman.

In this regard, Maria de la Luz Estrada, president of the National Citizen Observatory of Femicides, stressed the importance that the federal government has recognized that violence against women is a state problem and that, to date, the authorities “have not been able guarantee a life free of violence.” Of the gaps she warned that, “You have to know how, you have to have risk maps and still need to know what the zones, the municipalities, are where they will be carried out.” “In the country they have tried to take actions to face the increase in crimes committed against women for reasons of gender, without achieving satisfactory results since 2012, because most of the strategies have not focused on concrete actions or have not been able to be evaluated because of the lack of a methodology to do it”, she explained.

For its part, the director of the National Network of Refugees (RNR in its Spanish acronym), Wendy Figueroa, warned that the plan presented by the government and Inmujeres lacks objectives and even measurements for evaluation, so it is necessary to review it in depth.

According to the authorities themselves, in Mexico 66 of every 100 women suffer some kind of gender violence; and on average, every day,nine women are murdered.

For more information in Spanish:

Plan Emergente para garantizar la integridad, la seguridad y la vida de las mujeres y las niñas (Inmujeres)

Ven insuficiente y poco claro el plan de protección a mujeres (Pie de Página, 7 de marzo de 2019)

El plan para atender a las mujeres víctimas de violencia tardará meses (La Jornada, 7 de marzo de 2019)

Presentan plan emergente para seguridad de las mujeres; continuarán refugios, afirma presidente (lopezobrador.org.mx, 6 de marzo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Nacional : OSC denuncian omisiones en investigación y combate a feminicidios (August 16th 2018)

National: the Mexican government does not comply with the recommendations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (June 23rd, 2014)

Chiapas/National: Femicides on the Rise (May 24th, 2018)

National/International: Mexico Ranked 99th of 126 in Rule of Law Index – World Justice Project

Photo @ CentroPro DH

At the end of February, the civil organization World Justice Project (WJP) published its “Index on Rule of Law 2019”, in which Mexico was ranked 99 out of 126 listed countries, worse than countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and its neighbor, Guatemala. At a Latin American level, Mexico is still considered one of the countries with the least respect for the rule of law, ranking 26 out of 30.

The results obtained by the WJP are “based on surveys in 120,000 households and 3,800 experts in 126 countries, and measures the perception and experience of the general population of the rule of law in practical and everyday situations.” The Index evaluates eight key categories: Limits to Government Power, Absence of Corruption, Open Government, Fundamental Rights, Order and Security, Regulatory Compliance, Civil Justice, and Criminal Justice.

Leslie Solis, researcher in the project, highlights in the report published by Animal Politico that the hot spots that Mexico should dedicate “immediate attention” to are: corruption, security and criminal justice. These factors are the worst valued by the citizens and the experts consulted, being in second last place regionally in two of the three categories. Jorge Morales, a member of WJP, adds that, “the rule of law in Mexico has not improved in recent years. Therefore, it is necessary to begin to change this situation with decisions based on evidence and data such as those shown in this Index, because these data will serve to identify weaknesses and strengths, and what are the priorities in the public policies to be developed, so that they have an impact on the population.”

Globally, the three countries with the highest rates are: Denmark, ranking leader, Norway and Finland; the last three, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cambodia and Venezuela, occupying last place. It is striking that in general more countries have obtained lower scores than the previous year, which according to the researchers “is a sign that suggests an increase in authoritarianism, the score of the factor ‘Limits to Government Power’ was the one that showed the highest deterioration: 61 countries decreased, 23 remained the same, and 29 improved.”

The founder of WJP, William Neukom, reiterates that, “the Rule of Law is the basis for communities to enjoy peace, equality and opportunities.” That is why the results of this research project are important as “a first step to establish reference points, inform and direct reforms.”

For more information in Spanish:

México, entre los países del mundo donde menos respeto hay por el Estado de Derecho: World Justice Project (Animal Político, 28 de febrero de 2019)

El Estado de Derecho continúa debilitándose en el mundo (World Justice Project, 28 de ferbrero de 2019)

México más corrupto que Venezuela: estudio de WJP 2019 (Vanguardia, 1 de marzo de 2019)

For more infromation from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: denuncian grave incremento de la violencia feminicida en el primer bimestre de 2019 (18 de febrero de 2019)

Nacional/Internacional: ONU-DH condena asesinatos de defensores y periodistas en Chiapas y Baja California. Cuestiona eficacia del Mecanismo de protección gubernamental para dichos sectores (25 de enero de 2019)

International/National: Mexico’s 2018 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) (November 14th, 2018)

International/National: Human Rights Watch Publishes Report on Human Rights Situation in Mexico and the World
(February 4th, 2018)

 

Guerrero: Disappearance of Obtilia Eugenio Manuel and Hilario Cornelio Castro Indigenous Activists and Members of OPIM Reported

Obtilia Eugenio Manuel @ E-Consulta

On February 12th, the leaders Obtilia Eugenio Manuel and Hilario Cornelio Castro, members of the Organization of Me’ Phaa Indigenous Peoples (OPIM in its Spanish acronym), were disappeared.

Activist Ericka Zamora Pardo posted on her Facebook page that they disappeared “at approximately 7:40 am on the Tierra Colorada road stretch – El Ocotito, Guerrero.” Obtilia Eugenio is a member of the Council of Community Authorities of Ayutla and has been receiving death threats for several years.

According to the newspaper Sin Embargo, Obtilia Eugenio denounced threats last November “against her and two members of the Municipal Council of Ayutla, of which she is a member of the Justice Commission.”

Since January 14th, 2005, the defender has precautionary measures by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), as a result of threats and harassment that she has suffered due to her role in the defense of the cases of Ines Fernandez Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantu. The measures were put in place for the first time in September 2007.

For more information in Spanish:

Solalinde denuncia desaparición de dos activistas; una defendió a indígenas abusadas por militares (El Proceso, 13 de febrero de 2019)

La amenazan a ella y a otros integrantes del Concejo Municipal de Ayutla: Obtilia Eugenio (Sur de Acapulco, 19 de noviembre de 2018)

El padre Solalinde denuncia el secuestro de dos activistas indígenas en carretera de Guerrero (Sin Embargo, 13 de febrero de 2019)

Respuesta de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos a la demanda interpuesta por la Comisión lnteramericana de Derechos Humanos y al escrito de solicitudes, argumentos y pruebas presentado por los peticionarios, respecto al Caso 12.580 Inés Fernández Ortega. (COidh, 13 de diciembre de 2009)

INFORME Nº 94/06 (Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, 21 de octubre de 2006)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: Impunity prevails against human-rights defenders (December 18, 2013)

Guerrero: death-threats directed against Obtilia Eugenio Manuel, president of the OPIM (February 26, 2013)

Guerrero: Andrea Eugenio Manuel, indigenous activist and sister to Obtilia, is threatened with death (March 26, 2010)

Guerrero: New Threats against Obtilia Eugenio Manuel, President of the OPIM and Witness in the Inés Fernández Ortega vs. Mexico case (March 17, 2010)

 

 

 

National/Guerrero: Support Plan for Victims of the Dirty War

Photo @ EllosyNosotros

On February 11th, the Plan of Attention and Reparation for the Victims of Political Violence of the Dirty War was announced in the municipality of Atoyac de Alvarez in Guerrero.

The Executive Commission of Attention to Victims (CEAV in its Spanish acronym), relatives and survivors of victims of the “dirty war”, as well as the governor Hector Astudillo Flores, the president of the CEAV, Jaime Rochin del Rincon, presented the strategy of collective reparation that is intended to be implemented.

“The Care and Reparation Plan for the victims of past political violence in Guerrero seeks to give visibility to those who disappeared, give voice to those who were silenced and recover and reconstruct the social fabric of the communities”, according to information from Proceso.

According to the Economist, Jaime Rochin del Rincon, executive commissioner of the CEAV, acknowledged that, “actions such as forced disappearance, torture and arbitrary detention in Guerrero during the period of the Dirty War, followed a State policy of repression and extermination.”

The strategy emerged from the recommendation 26/2001 endorsed by the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH in its Spanisg acronym) addressed to the then president of the republic, Vicente Fox, and as well as the proposals included in the Special Report on the Disappearance of Persons and Clandestine Graves in Mexico of the CNDH, presented in 2017.

Through a statement, the CNDH announced that “in assessing the institutional progress represented by the Plan for Attention and Reparation for the Victims of the “Dirty War”, the CNDH established that the Mexican State has an outstanding debt with the victims of disappearance and their families, which will not be paid while the authorities of the three levels of government fail to comply with their basic and fundamental obligation to guarantee minimum conditions of security for peaceful coexistence between people and to put an end to the environment of violence, impunity and illegality that we face.”

For more information in Spanish:

Presentan en Guerrero plan de atención a víctimas de la guerra sucia (Aristegui Noticias, 11 de febrero de 2019)

La CEAV presenta Plan de Atención y Reparación a las Víctimas de la Violencia Política del Pasado (Proceso, 11 de febrero de 2019)

CNDH EL PLAN DE REPARACIÓN A VÍCTIMAS DE LA “GUERRA SUCIA”, QUE ATIENDE LAS PROPUESTAS DE LA RECOMENDACIÓN 26/2001 Y EL INFORME ESPECIAL SOBRE DESAPARICIÓN DE PERSONAS Y FOSAS CLANDESTINAS DE ESTE ORGANISMO NACIONAL (CNDH, 11 de febrero de 2019)

Recomendación 26/2001 (CNDH, 2001)

INFORME ESPECIAL SOBRE DESAPARICIÓN DE PERSONAS Y FOSAS CLANDESTINAS EN MÉXICO. (CNDH, 2017)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National: INAI Orders SENEDA to Submit Information on Generals Linked to “Dirty War” (June 26, 2018)

International/National: IACHR presents report regarding right to truth which includes the case of the “Dirty War” in Mexico (December 14, 2014)

The Peoples’ Permanent Tribunal condemns Mexican State for crimes against humanity (October 11, 2014)

International/National/Guerrero/Chiapas: More Attacks on Journalists; Articulo 19 and European Parliament Launch “By the Hand” Initiative to Protect Journalists at Risk

Photo @ Medium

On February 6th, the director of the office in Mexico City of El Sur newspaper in Guerrero, Vietnika Batres, received death threats and was the victim of identity theft. According to the information received by the organization Articulo 19, the journalist reported that “she detected unusual activity in both her personal and work email accounts (…) threats began to come from one of her own accounts (…) several more messages were sent from her own emails with explicit death threats addressed to her family, which included names and addresses of their homes, along with schedules of their activities.”

Articulo 19 asked for the Protection Mechanism for Defenders and Journalists to be granted to the journalist Vietnika Batres, as well as the necessary protection measures for her family.

On February 9th, the announcer, Jesus Ramos Rodriguez, from the station Oye 99.9 FM de Tabasco was murdered. According to El Pais, Rodriguez was the presenter of the morning program Our Region Today and was attacked when he was having breakfast at a hotel restaurant in the municipality of Emiliano Zapata, Tabasco.

On February 11th, the owner and announcer of a radio station in the municipality of Chicomuselo, Chiapas, was shot in the head. According to La Jornada, the announcer, Bersain Galvez Ramirez, broadcasts a “program of musical tastes in a FM station, presumably of the so-called pirates, that is, that does not have an official permit.” There is no greater clarity about the reason for the attack.

Given the high number of attacks against journalists in the country and “the ineffectiveness and inoperativeness of the law enforcement agencies” the initiative was presented on February 6th in the Senate of the Republic; “By the Hand; the European Parliament with Mexican Journalism.”

The initiative “consists of a political support tool to maintain a regular and constant dialogue between members of parliament, journalists and Mexican authorities such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and state and federal authorities, to rule on any threat and attack against the journalists who are part of the program.”

For more information in Spanish:

Artículo 19 denuncia amenazas de muerte contra Viétnika Batres, periodista del diario El Sur (Sin Embargo, 10 de febrero de 2019)

Amenazan de muerte a periodista en CDMX, suplantando su propia identidad (Aristegui, 10 de febrero de 2019)

Balean a Bersaín Gálvez, locutor de radio en Chiapas (El Sol de México, 11 de febrero de 2019)

Balean a locutor de radio en Chiapas (La Jornada, 11 de febrero de 2019)

Personas desconocidas amenazan de muerte a periodista suplantando su propia identidad (Artículo 19, 10 de febrero de 2019)

Parlamento Europeo y ARTICLE 19 lanzan el programa “De la Mano” para la protección de periodistas en riesgo (Artículo 19, 7 de febrero de 2019)

Asesinado un periodista en Tabasco, el segundo en México en 2019 (El País, 9 de febrero de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National/International: UNHCHR Condemns Murders of Defenders and Journalists in Chiapas and Baja California and Questions Efficacy of Government Protection Mechanism (January 31, 2019)

Chiapas: Two Members of Movement for Welfare, Peace and Common Good of Amatan and Independent Revolutionary Campesino Movement Murdered (January 28, 2019)

National: Journalist Rafael Murua Murdered (January 28, 2019)

National: 161 Defenders and 40 Journalists Murdered in Last Presidential Term of Office (December 14, 2018)