National / International: Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the United Nations presents report on Mexico in Geneva, Switzerland

@CDH Tlachinollan

On September 19, at the 39th session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UN), the special rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the United Nations, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz presented in Geneva, Switzerland, the Report on her visit to Mexico from November 8 to 17, 2017. It should be remembered thats he visited the states of Guerrero, Chihuahua and Chiapas in the framework of that visit.

The Tlachinollan Human Rights Center participated in the presentation of this Report and underlined in a bulletin that one of the cases taken up in the same is the historical struggle of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP). The Rapporteur refers in her report that despite the fact that the community members have expressed their refusal “the state and federal governments maintain their intention to carry it out, even though it would cause displacement and impacts to lands and traditional natural resources of the affected indigenous communities.”

In general, the report warns that the fight against megaprojects, as well as the defense of territories and natural resources have increased the risk of violence and criminalization, which has led several indigenous leaders to be imprisoned “despite judicial sentences that have ordered the suspension of projects or protection measures granted by international organizations “. It states that the preservation and protection of lands, territories and natural resources of indigenous peoples should be a priority issue that requires proper regulation, in accordance with international law.

This topic was resumed the following day in an event entitled “Defending the territory in Mexico” convened by the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center together with the international organizations International Peace Brigades (PBI), the German Coordination for Human Rights in Mexico, the World Organization Against Torture and the National Network of Civil Organizations for Human Rights All Rights for All (RED TDT), an event in which the Rapporteur was also present. “The leaders and indigenous communities who oppose the projects are killed, forcibly displaced, threatened and intimidated and subjected to insidious harassment in the form of criminal accusations that are often imprecise, highly exaggerated or fictitious”, the rapporteur warned.

For more information (in Spanish) :

Relatora de la ONU denuncia uso del sistema penal contra opositores a megaproyectos en México (Animal Político, 21 de septiembre de 2018)

Violan derechos indígenas megaproyectos en el estado, señala relatora de la ONU (El Sur, 20 de septiembre de 2018)

COMUNICADO | Participa Tlachinollan en la presentación del Informe de la Relatora Especial sobre Pueblos Indígenas  Victoria Tauli-Corpuz sobre su visita a México ante Consejo de DH de la ONU (Tlachinollan, 19 de septiembre de 2018)

Tlachinollan atestigua en Ginebra Informe sobre Pueblos Indígenas de la ONU (MVS Noticias, 19 de septiembre)

Los pueblos indígenas de Guerrero en el informe de la relatora (CDH Tlachinollan, 9 de agosto de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National/International: UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Publishes Report after Visit to Mexico August 21, 2018

National/International: Visit of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to Mexico Ends November 23, 2017

National–Mexico: Visit of UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples November 12, 2017

Advertisements

Guerrero: 50 arrest warrants against members of CECOP

@Regeneración

Weeks after the release of members of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota dam (Cecop), the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities – Community Police (CRAC-PC), and civilians of several villages belonging to the Communal Lands of Cacahuatepec, municipality of Acapulco, a new persecution and unprecedented criminalization has been unleashed against members of the movement, reported the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center.

According to several newspapers, ministerial police maintained checkpoints at the entrances of the communal lands of Cacahuatepec such as Las Chanecas, San Pedro Cacahuatepec, Las Palmitas, Tasajeras, San Isidro Gallinero and La Concepción ; and with list in hand illegally review all the peasants that come or go. They also reported that more than 80 policemen travel through the villages of San Isidro Gallinero, Parotillas, La Concepcion, Aguas Calientes, Oaxaquillas, Salsipuedes and Amatillo.

Two weeks ago, “ministerial police illegally searched the home of Clemente Cabrera Benítez, a prominent member of CECOP in the community of Tasajeras, and took him away. On September 4, Tomás Cruz Valeriano from the community of Ilamos was arrested in San Isidro Gallinero, both of whom have an arrest warrant for the crime of damages and dispossession resulting from unfounded accusations and fabricated evidence. The Office of the Prosecutor has released more than 50 arrest warrants against the same number of CECOP members, whose crime has been to defend their lands and natural assets such as the Papagayo River, which is irrationally exploited by gravial businessmen. “

On December 12, a delegation of community members from Cecop, CRAC, from the Council of Affected Communities of La Montaña (Ccdm), from the Popular Front of Tlapa (FPT), from the Front of Communities for the Defense of Collective Rights in La Montaña (Frecoddec) and the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center for went to the State Congress where they met with a commission of deputies from Morena. According to La Jornada de Guerrero, they listed several points for urgent resolution, among them the establishment of mechanisms for the prompt release of political prisoners, the immediate expulsion of state forces from the Communal Lands and the cessation of intimidation and harassment of civil organizations.

According to Cuadratin, they also presented a proposal for an initiative to reform the Political Constitution of Guerrero, from articles 8 to 14, regarding indigenous and Afro-Mexican populations so as to guarantee their right to decide and exercise their forms of social, economic and political organization, as well as their own community justice system.

For more information (in Spanish):

Comunicado / Persecución política contra el CECOP (CDH Tlachinollan, 6 de septiembre de 2018)

Piden organizaciones la libertad de los presos del Cecop y alto al hostigamiento (Sur de Acapulco, 12 de septiembre de 2018)

Piden comunitarios que diputados exhorten al gobierno a no reprimirlos (La Jornada de Guerrero, 13 de septiembre de 2018)

Piden organizaciones reforma que garantice derechos de los pueblos (Cuadratin Guerrero, 12 de septiembre de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: 9 of the 25 detainees for a confrontation in La Concepción in January are released September 17, 2018

Guerrero: Judge Orders Guarantees for Rights to Water, Health and Dignified Treatment for 25 CECOP Prisoners April 24, 2018

Guerrero: Extrajudicial Executions and Arrests of Community Police and Members of CECOP January 22, 2018

Oaxaca: Segob decrees Gender Violence Alert in Oaxaca for unfullfillment of governor Murat

Photo @ Proceso

Due to the lack of action of the state government facing the request of the Ombudsman for Human Rights of the People of Oaxaca (DDHPO) to obtain a Gender-based Violence Alert (AVG) in the state (it was presented in July 2017), the Ministry of the Interior (Segob) decided to issue this mechanism. According to Regeneration, it requires “the government of Alejandro Murat Hinojosa to deliver a work program to prevent, address, punish and eradicate violence against women taking into account the intercultural nature of its 570 municipalities “.

It is worth noting that the figures for femicides have exceeded two hundred victims during Murat Hinojosa’s term. Although a comprehensive program should be prepared by the state government for the entire Oaxacan territory, the AVG was only issued in 40 municipalities of the state, where local authorities must implement emergency actions. In total it deals with “6 municipalities of the Mixteca region, 3 of the Cañada; 5 on the Isthmus; 10 of the Coast; 8 of Central Valleys; 4 of the Papaloapan Basin; 2 in the Sierra Sur and the same number in the Sierra Norte”, according to a report by NVInoticias.

Regeneración adds that the working group that promoted the issue of the AVG in Oaxaca emphasized that in the past “the local government did not take into account the criteria related to intersectionality, intercultural approach, transparency and accountability in the implementation of actions. It also excluded civil organizations specialized in violence against women to follow up on the alert. “

At the moment, the AVG has been implemented in 14 states: Oaxaca, State of Mexico, Morelos, Michoacán, Chiapas, Nuevo Leon, Sinaloa, Colima, San Luis Potosi, Guerrero, Quintana Roo, Nayarit, Zacatecas and Veracruz.

For more information (in Spanish):

Por incumplimiento de Murat, decretan Alerta de Género en Oaxaca (Regeneración, 4 de septiembre de 2018)

Alerta de Género para 40 municipios de Oaxaca (NVI Noticias, 2 de septiembre de 2018)

Gobierno de Oaxaca acepta declaratoria de alerta de género (El Universal, 2 de septiembre de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ :

National/International: “Final Observations on the Ninth Periodic Report from Mexico, the Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women” Published August 6, 2018

Oaxaca: Feminist Strike on International Women’s Day March 27, 2018

Oaxaca: Special Comission to Investigate Femicidal Violence Set Up after Delays January 24, 2018

Oaxaca: Virtual Platform “Femicidal Violence” Launched December 28, 2017

International / National / Guerrero: First report of the Special Follow-up Mechanism of the IACHR to the Ayotzinapa case

On September 3, almost four years after the disappearance of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Guerrero, the First Report of the Special Follow-up Mechanism of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) was presented at the Rural Normal School. The event was attended by Esmeralda Arosemena, rapporteur for Mexico of the IACHR; Luis Ernesto Vargas, commissioner of the IACHR; Paulo Abrāo, executive secretary of the IACHR; Jan Jarab, representative in Mexico of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Luis Raúl González Pérez, president of the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH).

In this document, the IACHR confirms its rejection of the “historical truth” that the Mexican government has been defending in the face of what happened. He emphasizes that of the nine telephone numbers belonging to the disappeared students that registered activity on the night of their disappearance, “at least one of them” was found in the possession of a public security official of Guerrero, a fact that has not been investigated and should be so promptly. Likewise, the report points out the possible participation of elements of the Federal Police for what it calls to analyze the activities that the elements of said corporation had in Iguala that day and to resolve the chain of command that ordered their mobilization. Regarding the participation of the military, the IACHR indicates that the contradictions presented by the statements of elements belonging to the 27th Battalion and the photographic material in their possession, which records the detention of the disappeared students, must be clarified. In addition, it requests that the alleged links of various elements of the 27th Battalion with organized crime through arms trafficking or even some relatives with leaders of the Guerreros Unidos Cartel should also be investigated.

For his part, and a few hours after finishing his term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein considered that as long as there is no irrefutable knowledge of what happened in Iguala and there is no accountability for the forced disappearance of the 43 students, the case “will remain as an open wound in the minds of Mexicans” and as one of the “most pressing pending issues of the government of Enrique Peña Nieto.” If not resolved, “and if there is no responsibility for one of the most severe episodes we have seen in Mexico in the recent past, these conditions will persist.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Presenta el Mecanismo de la CIDH un informe en Ayotzinapa (El Sur, 4 de septiembre de 2018)

Participación de militares, aún sin atenderse en caso Ayotzinapa (El Economista, 3 de septiembre de 2018)

CIDH presenta informe en Normal de Ayotzinapa (La Jornada, 3 de septiembre de 2018)

Primer Informe del Mecanismo Especial de Seguimiento al caso Ayotzinapa de la CIDH (Aristegui Noticias, 3 de septiembre de 2018)

El crimen de Ayotzinapa es una herida abierta: Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein (Proceso, 3 de septiembre de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero/National: Incoming Government Confirms Creation of Truth Commission for Ayotzinapa Case August 13, 2018

Guerrero/National: Obstruction in Formation of Truth Commission in Ayotzinapa Case Denounced August 8, 2018

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

Guerrero/International: New Hearing of Ayotzinapa Case with Inter-American Commission for Human Rights May 21, 2018

National: presentation of the seventh report “Defending Human Rights: The six-years term of impunity”

Presentation of the seventh report “Defending Human Rights” (@Comité Cerezo)

On August 21, the seventh report “Defending Human Rights in Mexico: The six-years term of impunity” elaborated by Urgent Action for Human Rights Defenders (ACUDDEH), the Cerezo Committee and the Campaign against Enforced Disappearance was presented publicly. It covers the period from June 2017 to May 2018.

This report states that during the government of Enrique Peña Nieto (EPN) there have been 5527 attacks against human rights defenders and journalists; 949 of those cases were documented in this last period. It also states that « the largest number of cases registered are related to the opposition against the implementation of the structural reforms, particularly the people who defend the right to education were the most aggressed (224 cases); in second place were activists and people that demostrated in the streets; that is, those who exercised their human right to protest (219 cases) ». It also documents that “in this six-years term the major repression occurred in the states of Michoacán, Guerrero and Chiapas, states that, while suffering from high poverty rates, also have a long history of organizing to defend their human rights.”

The report also analyzes that after the Ayotzinapa case (2014), « the forced disappearance of human rights defenders or journalists implied a high political cost to the government to make it a widespread practice, so it was only used selectively against leaders or founders of indigenous, social or human rights movements, with which the case numbers are lower; however, this had a counterpoint : the Mexican government used extrajudicial execution to silence dissenting voices ». It highlights that the cases of forced disappearance increased by two times those of the previous six-year term.

It adds that “the cases of political imprisonment in Mexico are not unconnected or isolated facts, […], but they respond, in their vast majority, and are part of a mechanism of the strategy of political repression of the Mexican State to limit, dismantle and / or destroy, in practice, the human right to protest”. The organizations that wrote the report propose that within the national reconciliation proposed by the future government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) there might be an amnesty for this type of cases “that is, as a power of the president to “erase” the charges that are raised against these persons so thay they might obtain their freedom, as well as to eliminate the criminal record of those who have already served their sentence so that they might work or avoid being arrested for “recidivism”. An other option is to eliminate the cases that remain open as a silent threat to be able at any time to reactivate criminal proceedings, a situation thats wear down families and organizations and force them to stop demonstrating or compel them to give up from the defense of their rights”.

For more information (in Spanish):

Boletín de prensa Defender los Derechos Humanos en México: El Sexenio de la Impunidad (JUNIO DE 2017 A MAYO DE 2018) (Comité Cerezo, 25 de agosto de 2018)

Informe completo (Comité Cerezo, 25 de agosto de 2018)

México entre los países más peligrosos para defensores de derechos humanos (Vanguardia, 25 de agosto de 2018)

Una larga deuda: 5527 agresiones contra activistas y periodistas y el sexenio aún no concluye (Comité Cerezo, 28 de agosto de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National: Cerezo Committee Demands Amnesty, Truth Commissions and Protection of Defenders and Journalists from AMLO August 2, 2018

Guerrero: 9 of the 25 detainees for a confrontation in La Concepción in January are released

Detentions in La Concepción, January 2018 (@Tlachinollan)

On August 24, nine of the 25 detainees arrested on January 7, after a confrontation that left 11 dead and 38 arrested in the community of La Concepción were released.

Among those released are four members of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota dam (Cecop), three community police and two people who were in the process of reeducation and do not belong to any organization.

After the initial hearing, 13 of the 38 detainees had already been released while 25 of them were to be prosecuted, 16 of them community police.

Vidulfo Rosales, lawyer for the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, explained that evidence was presented that the detainees were tortured, “that the sodium rhodizonate test is not conclusive since a lack of certainty may exist and it was done without the presence of their defenders, which is a requirement within the new accusatory criminal system. In addition to that there was coercion for them to accept that the weapons presented were theirs and the presentation of the detainees was late”, explained El Sur. However, the criterion that was used to free the detainees was the fact that “the witnesses do not point them out (…) so they could not be linked to the accusation“.

Another detainee of those who should have been freed did not leave the prison because he is facing another process.

For more information (in Spanish) :

Liberan a 9 de los 25 detenidos tras el enfrentamiento en La Concepción (El Sur, 24 de agosto de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: Judge Orders Guarantees for Rights to Water, Health and Dignified Treatment for 25 CECOP Prisoners April 24, 2018

Guerrero: Extrajudicial Executions and Arrests of Community Police and Members of CECOP January 22, 2018

National: UN-DH urges Mexico to guarantee resources for the protection of journalists and human rights defenders

In a statement published on August 28, the Mexico Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN-DH) called on the Mexican government to guarantee the necessary funds for the functioning of the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and journalists created in 2012 before the aggressions and threats that these sectors have suffered.

The UN-DH considered “worrying the information about the insufficiency of financial resources in the trust of the Fund for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which could lead to the exhaustion of these resources in the coming weeks. The aforementioned Fund finances some of the measures granted by the Mechanism for the protection of human rights defenders and journalists and, therefore, its end would entail a risk for the 959 currently beneficiaries of the Mechanism; it would also cause new people at risk not to be able to receive protection”.

He denounced that “budget insufficiency is a limit to the institutional effort that the Mexican State has made to face the gravity of the situation of human rights defenders and journalists in the country.”

Jan Jarab, Representative of the UN-DH in Mexico, said that “we can not forget the importance of this Mechanism. Its existence has saved the lives of people who, through the exercise of journalism or the defense of human rights, stand out as a fundamental element for the enjoyment of the rights of all the people who live in Mexico. The lack of resources would involve exposing them to an unacceptable level of risk. “

For more information (in Spanish) :

ONU-DH exhorta Gobierno mexicano a garantizar recursos para Mecanismo de protección a periodistas y defensores (Boletín ONU DH, 27 de agosto de 2018)

Urge dotar de recursos al Mecanismo de Protección para Defensores y Periodistas: ONU-DH y CNDH (Proceso, 28 de agosto de 2018)

La protección de periodistas y defensores en México está en riesgo por falta de fondos (Noticias ONU, 28 de agosto de 2018)

Instan a no quitar recursos para proteger a periodistas (La Jornada, 28 de agosto de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National/International: International organizations call Mechanism for Protection for Human-Rights Defenders and Journalists into question May 16, 2015

National/International: PBI and WOLA publish report on Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists and Human-Rights Defenders in México February 10, 2015

National: A delicate moment for the Mechanism for the Protection of Rights Defenders and Journalists March 30, 2014