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)

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Oaxaca: Muxe Activist Oscar Cazorla Lopez Murdered

@Facebook Tradiciones Istmeñas, Minatitlan, Ver.

On February 9th, the Muxe activist and leader of the LGTTBI community, Oscar Cazorla Lopez, was found dead. The organizer of one of the biggest parties for the sexual diversity “Auténticas Intrepida Buscadorras del Peligro” (Authentic Intrepid Danger Seekers), which has been running for 40 years, was found at his home in Juchitan de Zaragoza, where an autopsy showed he was attacked at night with a knife. The body also showed signs of torture.

After the murder, Muxe collectives, civil society organizations and members of the LGTTBI community demanded a clear and exhaustive investigation to clarify the case. Calls for justice were also made by Congress. “The murder of Oscar Cazorla hurts the Muxe community and in general the Oaxacan people; as Legislative Power, we are obliged to join in the demand for justice to prevent the crime from going unpunished”, said Elisa Zepeda Lagunas, President of the Standing Committee on Administration and Law Enforcement, demanding the Attorney General of the State to carry out the appropriate actions.

The murder occurred in a context of hatred and violence against members of the LGTTBI community and defenders of the rights of that community. In the community where Oscar Cazorla Lopez comes from, five murders have been documented in the last 15 years. “There have been more than five murders and in only one, that of our friend Nisa, someone was arrested, who was later released. These crimes continue unpunished. We demand justice for them and for all the murders that have taken place in this city, considered the ninth most violent in the country”, reports Amaranta Gomez Regalado, another Muxe activist. Throughout Mexico, a record number of murders of LGTTBI people was recorded with 95 dead, as well as 14 murders of rights defenders of this group in 2017 and it is estimated that the figures for 2018 were similar.

For more information in Spanish:

Encuentran muerto al activista muxe Óscar Cazorla en Juchitán (El Sol de México, 10 de febrero de 2019)

Hallan sin vida al activista muxe Oscar Cazorla (La Jornada, 10 de febrero de 2019)

Hallan muerto y con signos de violencia a activista muxe en Juchitán; exigen justicia (Proceso, 11 de febrero de 2019)

Se une Congreso a comunidad muxhe para pedir justicia por asesinato de Óscar Cazorla (Oaxaca Digital, 10 de febrero de 2019)

Asesinan a líder de la comunidad muxe en Juchitán (El Universal, 11 de febrero de 2019)

Urgen a implementar protección para activistas LGBTTTI (Segundo Segundo, 11 de febrero de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Oaxaca: 17 Men Pose as Transgender to Register as Candidates (May 14, 2018)

National: Increase in Murders of Transgender People Denounced (October 12, 2016)

Guerrero: Brutal murder of LGBT activist in Chilpancingo (May 6, 2011)

National/International: Civil Organizations Ask Mexico to Erradicate Torture

On January 30th, at a press conference after three days of meetings, national and international organizations and networks reported that the Mexican State did not fulfill its obligation to present a National Program against Torture, a commitment included in the General Law on the subject approved in 2017 and that is “completely stopped” and of “low priority for official spaces”

They exhorted the new government led by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) to “recognize the seriousness of the phenomenon of torture and to collaborate with civil society in combatting it, recognizing the experience and value of its contribution.” They demanded the new government “incorporate an axis of work on combating torture in the context of the new National Development Plan, as well as to make known opportunely the mechanisms so that civil society can make contributions in this process.”

They also highlighted “the opportunity represented by the national review to which Mexico will be submitted in April of this year before the Committee Against Torture (CAT). This space will be a fundamental test that will permit determing the true commitment of the new government to take concrete actions to eradicate torture.”

They revealed that they plan to contribute to the fight against torture in two says. On the one hand, “they will strengthen the updated diagnosis of the problem, with the coordinated production of a joint report (…) which will be presented to the UNCAT in April in Geneva.” On the other hand, they reported that in the meeting they began to work together on “an initial draft of the National Program to Prevent and Punish Torture based on internationally tested methodologies. The purpose of this exercise is to contribute constructively to the design and implementation of a State policy that effectively counteracts and discourages the practice of torture.”

For more information in Spanish:

Organizaciones exigen al Estado mexicano erradicar la tortura (OSC, 30 de enero de 2019)

Oportunidad histórica de México para erradicar la tortura: OMCT (La Jornada, 30 de enero de 2019)

Piden voluntad en combate a tortura (Reforma, 30 de enero de 2019)

Organizaciones nacionales e internacionales piden a Gobierno Federal incluir lucha contra tortura en el Plan de Desarrollo (Vanguardia, 30 de enero de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Internacional/Nacional: México ante el Examen Periódico Universal (EPU) 2018 (8 de noviembre de 2018)

Nacional/Internacional: Organizaciones civiles fuerzan a Relaciones Exteriores a hacer público el informe del Subcomité para la Prevención de la Tortura de Naciones Unidas

(20 de abril de 2018)

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)

Chiapas: Two Members of Movement for Welfare, Peace and Common Good of Amatan and Independent Revolutionary Campesino Movement Murdered

Protest in Tuxtla Gutierrez (@Chiapas Paralelo)

Fifteen days after the human rights defender Sinar Corzo Esquinca was murdered in the municipality of Arriaga, Noe Jimenez Pablo, member of the Ayala Plan Coordinating Independent Revolutionary Campesino Movement (MOCRI-CNPA-MC in its Spanish acronym) and Jose Santiago Gomez Alvarez, of the Movement for Welfare, Peace and the Common Good of Amatan, were found dead and with signs of torture in a garbage dump near the municipality of Amatan. These events occurred after the denunciation of the disappearance of 50 members of the Movement for Welfare, Peace and the Common Good of Amatan on January 17th, after an armed commando broke up the sit-in maintained by the organisation since last November, against the caciques Wilbert and Manuel de Jesus Carpio Mayorga (the latter currently mayor for MORENA). The other 48 people have already appeared alive.

On January 19th, the Movement for Welfare, Peace and Common Good of Amatan held a protest in Amatan. The following day, MOCRI-CNPA-MN marched with the coffins of the two murdered individuals in Tuxtla Gutierrez accompanied by social organizations, displaced families from Chiapas, human rights defenders and students of the Rural Normal “Mactumatzá” School to demand justice requesting that the Federal authorities investigate the case.

Within the framework of this protest, Jesus Gutierrez Valencia, spokesman for the MOCRI-CNPA, denounced that this crime occurred despite the fact that 31 people from that municipality were already being monitored by the Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists and Human Rights Defenders of the Secretariat of Government (SEGOB in its Spanish acronym), including Noe Jimenez Pablo. “We came here to Tuxtla, to march with their bodies and show them here in front of the doors of the Palace of Government, what they denied so much, the existence of paramilitary groups and the dead that they do not want to see or that nobody sees what happens daily in Chiapas,” Gutierrez said. He denounced that “at all times the state government denied the facts and was negligent in its investigative role, since it always protected the mayor and his armed civilian groups.”

The lawyer Leonel Rivero, legal advisor of the CNPA-MN, reported that the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH in its Spanish acronym) and the Attorney General’s Office already took on the case, and that “it cannot be investigated by Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca, Attorney General of the State, because in June 2001 he himself, as public prosecutor, arrested, tortured and kept Jimenez Pablo himself aprisoner, which earned him a recommendation from the CNDH.”

The lawyer also reported that there are currently threats from the same group aggressors against defenders of the Antonio Esteban Human Rights Center and against the parish priest of the municipality of Amatan, Jose Dominguez Dominguez, who has been an intermediary for the reconciliation of the people of Amatan and has already suffered attacks on two occasions.

Francisco Jimenez Pablo, Noe’s brother, blamed Rutilio Escandon Cadenas, governor of the state, and the Secretary General of Government, Ismael Brito Mazariegos, “because to date they have not had the will to resolve social conflicts, and despite being shown evidence of the operation of armed civilian groups, protected by state and municipal police, they continue operating with impunity and killing people at ant time of the day.”

Several social and civil organizations have condemned these murders. The Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Center for Human Rights recalled that “Amatan is a strategic step for transferring drugs and weapons through its border with Tabasco, it is a corridor formed by the municipalities of Bochil, Simojovel, Pueblo Nuevo and Huitiupan, where the armed groups are linked to local caciques, who in turn are linked or protected by the municipal authorities and police, for the economic and political control of the region. The negligence that the government of Rutilio Escandon Cadenas maintains with caciques, as well as the unpunished activity of armed groups in several zones, has generated an outbreak of violence in different municipalities of Chiapas, generating fear in the population in general and high risk to the work that we exercise as journalists, communicators, social leaders and human rights defenders.”

For more information in Spanish:

Quince días después del homicidio de Sinar Corzo, otro activista es asesinado en Amatán, Chiapas (Sin Embargo, 19 de enero de 2019)

Asesinan al líder de la Coordinadora Plan de Ayala en Chiapas (La Jornada, 19 de enero de 2019)

Hallan ejecutado con huellas de tortura a líder de resistencia civil de Amatán (Proceso, 19 de enero de 2019)

Campesinos y estudiantes exigen justicia por asesinato de dos líderes sociales asesinados en Amatán (Proceso, 20 de enero de 2019)

Marcha fúnebre exige justicia para líderes campesinos y el pueblo de Amatán (Chiapas, 20 de enero de 2019)

Condenamos el asesinato de Noé Jiménez Pablo (CDH Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, 19 de enero de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: el Movimiento por el Bien Común, la Paz y Justicia de Amatán denuncia nueva agresión (18 de enero de 2019)

Chiapas: Grupo armado en Amatán intimida al párroco (17 de diciembre de 2018)

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

(@Excelsior)

On January 15th, the Commission for Truth and Access to Justice was set up in the Ayotzinapa case in order to “know the truth and impart justice, to establish responsibilities and enforce the law” given the forced disappearance of 43 students from the Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Guerrero in September 2014, the secretary of the Interior Olga Sanchez Cordero said.

The Commission will be headed by the Undersecretary of Human Rights of the Interior, Alejandro Encinas, and will be made up of representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (which will maintain contact with international human rights organizations) and the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (to assign the necessary resources). Also participating will be five fathers and mothers of the disappeared students as well as representatives of the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, the Human Rights Center Montaña, Tlachinollan, Services and Consultancy for Peace, and Fundar Analysis and Research Center. Their first meeting will be January 23rd.

The first thing the Commission will do is approve its guidelines and establish contacts with local authorities and multilateral human rights organizations (the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner in Mexico); as well as defining the incentives or rewards for those who can provide information that helps in the clarification of what happened. They will also create a program of assistance and psychosocial accompaniment for the victims.

It should be recalled that on December 4, 2018, in one of his first acts of government, AMLO issued a presidential decree for the creation of this Commission, ordering that all instances of the federal Executive Power collaborate in any situation that was requested.

Santiago Aguirre, deputy director of the Human Rights Center Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez clarified that the creation of this Commission represents a process that is different from the creation of a specialized prosecutor’s office for the case, something that a Collegiate Court of the Judiciary ordered to continue with the criminal investigation of the facts.

On another note, the federal government will investigate all officials of the past six years possibly involved in the case, “whoever it may be”, Alejandro Encinas said in an interview.

Two days before the creation of the Commission, a federal judge left a resolution issued by the General Inspector of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) without effect (through an injunction), which considered irregularities committed by different officials of the Attorney General’s Office as only “minor offenses”, when investigating the disappearance of the students, exonerating various officials in the events. He considered that “the decision of the Chief Investigator was neither exhaustive nor congruent and warns that it omitted to pronounce on the criminal significance that the documented behaviors could have given due to their seriousness. Consequently, the General Investigation Office of the PGR must issue a new resolution to correct the failures and omissions committed”, reported the Prodh Center, Fundar, Serapaz and Tlachinollan.

For more information in Spanish:

Instalan este martes en Segob la comisión presidencial para la verdad y justicia en el caso Ayotzinapa (Animal Político, 15 de enero de 2019)

Instalan Comisión de la Verdad para el caso Ayotzinapa (Proceso, 15 de enero de 2019)

Encinas anuncia investigación contra ex funcionarios por caso Ayotzinapa (La Jornada, 15 de enero de 2019)

Instalan comisión por Ayotzinapa; padres reclaman “la verdad” (La Jornada, 15 de enero de 2019)

Ordena Poder Judicial de la Federación investigar posible responsabilidad penal de funcionarios de PGR por irregularidades en investigación del caso Ayotzinapa (OSC, 13 de enero de 2019)

Juzgado ordena nueva investigación sobre actuación irregular de funcionarios en caso Ayotzinapa (Animal Político, 13 de enero de 2018)

Padres de los 43 nombran a representantes en Comisión de la verdad (La Jornada, 13 de enero de 2019)

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)

 

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)

 

 

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)