Chiapas/National: Femicides on the Rise

Compared to the period from January to March 2017, the number of femicides in Chiapas doubled in the same period in 2018. This is clear from the official data of the State Attorney General’s Office, when they state that in the first quarter of 2017 four femicides were registered and in the same period in 2018 the figure was eight. This database details that five of the eight femicides were committed with a knife and inside houses.

Faced with this growing problem, on May 13th, young students of the Bachelor of Communication from the Autonomous University of Chiapas presented the project ”Emergenti. Realidad que Duele”, a documentary about the Gender Violence Alert (GVA) promoted in Chiapas since November 2016, and two cases of victims of feminicide in the state: Maribel Vazquez and Yuri Mendez Trejo. “Public policies have to address this problem”, one of the documentary makers stated.

At the national level, statistics from the National Public Security System indicate that during the first quarter of 2018 there were 620 women victims of intentional homicide, a record 18% higher than in the same period of 2017. Organizations such as the National Observatory of Femicide have warned that the murders of women are not only increasing, but are increasingly committed with more brutality. The states in which the largest numbers of women have been victims of intentional homicides are Guanajuato, Mexico State, Guerrero and Baja California, with almost half of the victims.

The Center for Women’s Rights of Chiapas told us in an interview that, although the federal government and the entities agreed that the murders of women be investigated under protocols of femicide since December of last year, in practice there is still difficulty in registering the cases and a tendency to “make up the data” trying to “hide the real level of violence that exists in the state”; This is combined with a low culture of reporting crime generally, and particularly, in the face of gender violence.

For more information in Spanish:

Al alza los feminicidios en Chiapas; reportan ocho casos de enero a marzo (Proceso, 10 de mayo de 2018)

Proyectan documental ‘’Emergente. Realidad que duele’’ sobre los feminicidios en Chiapas (Voces Feministas, 14 de mayo de 2018)

Aumenta la cifra de feminicidios en el país (La Verdad, 13 de mayo de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: otro feminicidio en este inicio de año (19 de enero de 2018)

Nacional/Chiapas: En el marco del Día Internacional para la Eliminación de la Violencia contra las Mujeres (1 de diciembre de 2017)

Chiapas: a un año de la Declaratoria de Alerta de Violencia de Género (AVG) en Chiapas (25 de noviembre de 2017)

Chiapas: Día Internacional de Lucha Contra la Violencia hacia las Mujeres (28 de noviembre de 2016)

Advertisements

Guerrero/International: New Hearing of Ayotzinapa Case with Inter-American Commission for Human Rights

On May 8th, during the hearing held in the context of the 168th Period of Sessions of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) that took place in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, prior to a report on the case that the IACHR will publish and to a visit to Mexico next July, relatives of the 43 Ayotzinapa student teachers who disappeared in Guerrero in 2014, and their legal representatives warned that the federal government intends to shelve the investigation before a possible alternation in the presidency of the republic this year. “These men know that their corrupt government is on the way out and they are afraid that the next government will want to get to where it [the current government] stops in our case. For that reason they want to close each line by acting like they are investigating,” said the father of one of the disappeared.

During his speech, Santiago Aguirre, deputy director of the Prodh Center, said that, “there are four signs that confirm our worst fears that the sole priority of this administration is to close the case given the high probability that those who made the historical truth will soon leave their positions of power.” These signs include: “the rejection of the federal government of the UN report, which documented torture of those allegedly basically responsible for the official theory; the filtering and misrepresentation of messages of the alleged perpetrators -provided by the DEA- with the purpose of exculpating state and federal officials; the failure of the Attorney General in his deficiency to make new accusations; and the refusal to comply with the psychosocial diagnosis.”

Commissioner Ernesto Vargas, of Colombian origin, emphasized his concern over the disqualifications against Jan Jarab, representative in Mexico of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. He insisted on the concern that the office has discovered a “pattern of torture” that “can ruin the investigation.” It is worth mentioning that faced with the most recent questions from the Mexican government, the UNCHR defended the findings of the report “Double Injustice. Report on Human Rights Violations in the Investigation of the Ayotzinapa Case”, published last March, which includes allegations of torture and cover-ups in the Ayotzinapa case. It also reiterated its call to the Mexican authorities to implement their recommendations, in order to clarify the facts, guarantee justice, provide reparations to the victims and “guarantee the non-repetition of these tragic events.”

The representatives of the Mexican State in Santo Domingo were led by Ambassador Miguel Ruiz Cabañas, who presented the progress of the investigations made by the Attorney General’s Office on the leaks of information provided by the United States government of conversations of those implicated in the Ayotzinapa case. According to the person in charge of the Special Office for the Iguala case, of 5,000 images obtained, it was decided to explore 360 ​​places in search of the youths, of which, from November to last April, 325 were reviewed “without tangible results”. He also mentioned that 31 people have been considered responsible for having participated in the events, of which 16 would have open proceedings in progress for carrying weapons, organized crime, kidnapping and crimes against health [sic].

For more information in Spanish:

Alertan de intención de cerrar el caso Ayotzinapa ante probable alternancia presidencial (Centro ProDH, 8 de mayo de 2018)

En audiencia de la CIDH, activistas alertan contra carpetazo al caso Ayotzinapa (Proceso, 8 de mayo de 2018)

Este gobierno ya se va y quiere cerrar el caso Ayotzinapa, acusan padres de normalistas desaparecidos (Animal Político, 8 de mayo de 2018)

Caso Ayotzinapa en la CIDH: padres de los 43 exigen no olvidar a los jóvenes (CNN México, 9 de mayo de 2018)

La ONU-DH en Ginebra defiende informe sobre Ayotzinapa y reitera llamado a acatar sus recomendaciones (Proceso, 9 de mayo de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Internacional/Guerrero: Exigen que la PGR agote todas las líneas de investigación que surgen de nueva información en caso Ayotzinapa (18 de abril de 2018)

Guerrero/Nacional/Internacional : Nuevos informes sobre caso Ayotzinapa (15 de marzo de 2018)

Guerrero: PGR buscará cerrar caso Ayotzinapa antes de diciembre (6 de marzo de 2018)

Guerrero / México – Nacional: Ayotzinapa: Caravana Rompiendo el Silencio y el Olvido (3 de marzo de 2018)

Guerrero / Nacional-México: Ayotzinapa a 40 meses de la desaparición de los 43 sigue la “indolencia” del gobierno (30 de enero de 2018)

Oaxaca: Cautionary Measures after Journalist Receives Death Threat on Facebook

(@Artículo 19)

“On May 1st, the reporter of Piñero de la Cuenca digital media, Juan Alberto Carmona Contreras, better known as Betillo, was threatened with death on Facebook by unknown persons in Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, as well as being harassed by unknown people outside of his home”, the organization for freedom of expression Articulo 19 reported.

Given the elements of context and concern, the organization stressed that “the threat that circulated on Facebook was accompanied by the dissemination of a photograph that was taken of the reporter in December 2017 when he was threatened by public officials of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR in its Spanish acronym). At that time, a police agent was annoyed with the reporter while covering an fireworks operation in Loma Bonita, Oaxaca and, according to the report of the journalist to Articulo 19, the public official stated: “I’ll get you, even if I lose my job and it’s not a threat, it’s a promise.”

For this reason, and from that date, Carmona Contreras requested the intervention of the Federal Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists. However, Articulo 19 stressed that, “it have not been enough to stop the aggressions against him.”

In view of the most recent events, the Ombudsman for Human Rights of the People of Oaxaca issued precautionary measures in favor of the reporter and opened file DDHPO/CA/504/(01)/OAX/2018.

For more information in Spanish:

Amenazan de muerte a periodista de Oaxaca en redes sociales (Artículo 19, 6 de mayo de 2018)

Defensoría de Oaxaca emite medidas cautelares para periodista amenazado de muerte en Facebook (Proceso, 7 de mayo de 2018)

Dictan medidas cautelares a reportero de El Piñero, quien anteriormente fue amenazado por agente de la PGR (Página3.mx, 7 de mayo de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Oaxaca: Denuncian la desapareción de un periodista en el Istmo de Tehuantepec (23 de enero de 2018)

Nacional/Internacional: relatores de la ONU y la CIDH sobre Libertad de Expresión llaman a México a redoblar esfuerzos para proteger a periodistas (7 de diciembre de 2017)

Nacional/Oaxaca: Red nacional de periodistas exige detener la violencia contra comunicadora (17 de octubre de 2017)

Nacional/Internacional: Espionaje a periodistas y activistas en México (27 de junio de 2017)

National: 20,390 Forcibly Displaced in 2017 – Over 329,900 in the Last 12 Years

(@CMDPDH)

On May 2nd, the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH in its Spanish acronym) published a report on forced internal displacement in Mexico that indicated that in 2017, the climate of violence that prevails in the country caused 25 internal forced mass displacement events in nine states of the Republic, which affected 20,390 people. In the last 12 years at least 329,917 people have had to flee their homes, a figure that is “extremely conservative” as it only includes the cases in which entire communities have had to move. The CMDPDH estimates the figure could exceed one million people, although it affirms that the government has not published figures due to not wanting to “recognize the scale of the problem and the existence of an armed conflict.”

The report states that the states of Guerrero (seven cases), Sinaloa (five), Chihuahua (three), Chiapas (three) and Oaxaca (three) concentrated practically all mass displacement episodes registered in 2017. Chiapas was the entity where the phenomenon affected the largest number of people: 6,090, most of them originating in the municipalities of Altos de Chalchihuitan and Chenalho. 60.44% of the people affected were indigenous and the vast majority lived in rural areas

Of all the factors that led to forced displacement, the majority of them were caused by armed organized groups. Other causes were political violence, social conflict and territorial disputes and, to a lesser extent, the implementation of extractive mining projects.

The CMDPDH regretted that in Mexico the issue of forced internal displacement remains an issue without diagnosis, without public policies or official responses: “Internally displaced people do not have a framework of protection, they are like a kind of legal limbo where nobody confers them rights. The displaced people are left at the mercy of the will of local governments.” In addition, although it acknowledged the existence are two local laws, in Chiapas and in Guerrero, lack of regulations has prevented their proper enforcement to date.

For more information in Spanish:

Informe 2017 : Desplazamiento interno forzado en México (CMDPDH, informe completo, 2 mayo de 2018)

La violencia provocó el desplazamiento forzado de 20 mil 390 personas en 2017: CMDPDH (Proceso, 2 de mayo de 2018)

Más de 20 mil desplazados en México durante 2017; la mayoría, indígenas: Informe (Aristegui Noticias, 2 de mayo de 2018)

En 12 años, 329.9 mil víctimas de desplazamiento forzado en el país (La Jornada, 3 de mayo de 2018)

Los conflictos territoriales y la violencia llevan al éxodo a más de 12.000 indígenas en México (El País, 3 de mayo de 2018)

Por la violencia, más de 325 mil personas han dejado sus hogares a la fuerza en México (Animal Político, 3 de mayo de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas : Persiste riesgo a la vida de indígenas tsotsiles en Aldama, denuncia el Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (26 de abril de 2018)

Chiapas: SIPAZ visitó a personas desplazadas de Chalchihuitán (20 de abril de 2018)

Guerrero: De la civilidad truncada a la desaparición de la razón, informe final de la Misión de Observación al Estado de Guerrero (16 de abril de 2018)

Chiapas: Plantón desplazados ejido Puebla, Chenalhó (10 de abril de 2018)

Chiapas: Otro conflicto agrario en los límites de Chenalhó provoca desplazados en el municipio de Aldama [blog incluye antecedentes] (27 de marzo de 2018)

Chiapas: desplazados de Chalchihuitán denuncian condiciones en las que se siguen encontrando(23 de marzo de 2018)

Chiapas : sin condiciones de seguridad regresan a casa más de 4000 desplazados en Chalchihuitán (4 de enero de 2018)

SIPAZ: BOLETÍN URGENTE – Reactivación del conflicto agrario entre Chenalhó y Chalchihuitán : violencia generalizada e impunidad (16 de diciembre de 2017)

National: First Presidential Debate – Proposals and Accusations

Photo @ Univision

On April 22nd, the first presidential debate took place, in which the five candidates for the presidency had a space to present their proposals and ideas to the voters. In the following days, the media offered different types of analyses and evaluations, about the positions and mutual accusations of the candidates. Proceso concluded that for them the debate “had a different value but a single goal. For the PRI, it was the hope of a better position, for the PAN, the opportunity to position itself in second place, for the independents to make themselves known and for the leader of Morena to protect and maintain the distance in the polls.” La Jornada had a more critical position in which it considered that “the issue of corruption during the debate between presidential candidates was the setting for a feast of accusations in which everyone denounced the dishonesty of others and eluded the accusations against their people.”

Several media agreed that Lopez Obrador, candidate for MORENA, was the “common target of the debate”, an issue that was echoed even in the international press according to Forbes Mexico, or that is reflected in titles like “All against AMLO” in Proceso. “One of the most controversial proposals of the night,” as La Jornada called it, was the proposal of independent candidate Rodriguez Calderon to cut off the hand of those who stole from a public service post.

Disinformemonos commented that from the point of view of activists and civil society organizations it regretted that “during the presidential debate last Sunday the candidates did not examine in depth measures to solve the human rights crisis in the country, but instead concentrated on attacking each other without explaining the proposals.” Rocio Culebro, executive director of the Mexican Institute of Human Rights and Democracy, and Fernando Rios, executive secretary of the TDT Network, added that “neither did they address issues such as victim assistance, extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, abuses by the police and armed forces, femicides, violence against the press, forced displacement and torture.”

For more information in Spanish:

El debate devino en festival de acusaciones mutuas de corrupción (La Jornada, 23 de abril de 2018)

Así vio la prensa internacional el debate presidencial de México (Forbes México, 23 de abril de 2018)

Lamentan que candidatos no profundizaran sobre derechos humanos en debate presidencial (Desinformémonos, 24 de abril de 2018)

Todos contra AMLO (Proceso, 25 de abril de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Nacional : arranca campaña electoral 2018 (6 de abril de 2018)

Nacional/Chiapas: El precandidato del PRI a la Presidencia inició su precampaña en San Juan Chamula (15 de dieciembre de 2017)

Guerrero/National: “43 X 43 in the Heart Day” Begins

On April 20th, the 43 X 43 in the Heart Day started, taking into account that April 26th will mark 43 months since the disappearance of the 43 students of the Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Guerrero. One of the main demands is to ask President Enrique Peña Nieto (EPN) to comply with the agreements he signed with relatives of those who disappeared in October 2014. At that meeting, EPN had committed himself to getting to the bottom of the matter until he found the students. However, “43 months after the disappearance of our children, there are no concrete advances, on the contrary, they intend to close our case,” they reported. Some of the actions are being carried out in Mexico City and others in Guerrero itself.

Meliton Ortega, spokesperson of the Nos Faltan 43 collective explained that “we want the Mexican government to comply with the four lines of investigation of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE). Today it has been proven that there is transfer of drugs from Iguala to Chicago and we demand that this line be broadened.” He announced to the candidates for the Presidency of the Republic that they will maintain their protests while the case is unsolved: “Now that the election is on the doorstep, the government does not even intend to offer advances along the lines of investigation we have demanded (… ) That is why we say that the case should not be closed, as the government of Enrique Peña Nieto claims. What he did during 2017 was just killing time.”

For the same reason, on April 24th, students’ relatives tried to reach the official residence of Los Pinos to demand an audience with EPN, and demand that the case be solved before the end of his term. However, their attempt was blocked by more than 400 elements of the capital city police, which generated tension that resulted in a confrontation that left six demonstrators and two uniformed personnel injured.

The parents of the 43 also denounced the police harassment to which they were subjected, since at the end of the demonstration, police followed them to where they are staying to carry out the activities that will continue in Mexico City and there they remained several hours possibly to “arrest the student leaders and the parents of the 43 on charges of vandalism.”

The next day, the parents of the 43 had planned to speak at the Ministry of the Interior to request an audience with minister Alfonso Navarrete, who has not received them since he took office. On the 26th, marking one more month of the disappearance of the student teachers, a march from the Angel of Independence to the capital’s Zocalo.

For more information in Spanish:

Granaderos impiden a padres de los 43 llegar a Los Pinos (La Jornada, 25 de abril de 2018)

Más de 400 policías intentaron encapsularnos para detenernos: padres de los 43 (Desinformémonos, 25 de abril de 2018)

Por las elecciones, olvidan a normalistas desaparecidos: padres de los 43 (Proceso, 23 de abril de 2018)

Los 43 latidos del corazón de México (Tlachinollan, 23 de abril de 2018)

Inició jornada “En el corazón 43 x 43” para exigir la aparición de los normalistas de Ayotzinapa (Desinformémonos, 21 de abril de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Internacional/Guerrero: Exigen que la PGR agote todas las líneas de investigación que surgen de nueva información en caso Ayotzinapa (18 de abril de 2018)

Guerrero/Nacional/Internacional : Nuevos informes sobre caso Ayotzinapa (15 de marzo de 2018)

Guerrero: PGR buscará cerrar caso Ayotzinapa antes de diciembre (6 de marzo de 2018)

Guerrero / México – Nacional: Ayotzinapa: Caravana Rompiendo el Silencio y el Olvido (3 de marzo de 2018)

Guerrero / Nacional-México: Ayotzinapa a 40 meses de la desaparición de los 43 sigue la “indolencia” del gobierno (30 de enero de 2018)

Guerrero : Caso Ayotzinapa: reunión con el Consejo de la Judicatura Federal y 5ta visita oficial del Mecanismo de Seguimiento de la CIDH (8 de febrero de 2018)

Guerrero / Nacional-México: Ayotzinapa a 40 meses de la desaparición de los 43 sigue la “indolencia” del gobierno (30 de enero de 2018)

National/International: Civil Organizations Force Foreign Affairs to Publish Report of UN Sub-committee for the Prevention of Torture

Stop Torture (@Desinformemonos)

On April 12th, after four months in which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE in its Spanish acronym) kept secret the report of the Sub-committee on the Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of the United Nations on its second visit to Mexico from December 12th to 21st, 2016, civil organizations forced the document to be made public through a request for access to information.

These organizations indicated that, “although the SPT recognized legislative advances regarding the prevention of torture in the country in the published report, it also reiterated that torture is a widespread practice and confirmed that the almost absolute impunity that prevails in cases fosters its repetition.” They stated that the Sub-committee noted that, “the lack of independence of the forensic services of the prosecutor’s offices translates into the concealment of acts of torture and documented that many persons deprived of their liberty do not denounce torture and ill-treatment for fear of reprisals.” In addition to the impunity, the Sub-committee noted its concern about “different forms of corruption and collusion between complex criminal groups and prison authorities and personnel.”

The organizations called on the Mexican State to fully comply with the recommendations made by the SPT, and include civil society organizations, and experts in its implementation.

“Among the recommendations made by the sub-committee to the Mexican State are ensuring that all authorities empowered to deprive the liberty of citizens are trained and fully apply the standards of rational and proportionate use of force with a human rights approach, instruct the State agents on the prohibition of the use of torture, adopt necessary measures to prevent it and sanction it, among others,” La Jornada concluded.

The president of the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH in its Spanish acronym), Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez, reported that in the last 17 years that organization issued about 300 recommendations for torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, based on more than 11,500 complaints. The CNDH found that “the gap between a phenomenon recognized as widespread and the few convictions for torture indicate that impunity for acts of torture is prevalent.”

For more information in Spanish:

Prevalece impunidad de actos de tortura en México, señala subcomité de la ONU (La Jornada, 18 de abril de 2018)

La CNDH emitió 300 recomendaciones por tortura y tratos crueles en los últimos 17 años (El Sur, 17 de abril de 2018)

La CNDH emitió 300 recomendaciones por tortura y tratos crueles en los últimos 17 años (Proceso, 16 de abril de 2018)

ONU confirma la práctica generalizada de la tortura en México (SIDIDH, 16 de abril de 2018)

Informe del Subcomité para la Prevención de la Tortura y Otros Tratos o Penas Crueles, Inhumanos o Degradantes (Subcomité de Naciones Unidas, diciembre de 2017)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Internacional/Nacional : Human Rights Watch publica informe sobre la situación de derechos humanos en México y el mundo (19 de enero de 2018)

Nacional: Senado aprueba Ley contra la Tortura (29 de abril de 2017)

Nacional/Internacional : « la tortura y los malos tratos siguen siendo generalizados en México » Juan E. Mendez (7 de marzo de 2017)