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)

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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)

International/Guerrero: Demands for Attorney General to Exhaust All Lines of Investigation Following New Information in Ayotzinapa Case

On April 12th, the newspaper Reforma reported that intercepted telephone conversations between members of the Guerreros Unidos de Chicago cartel and “armed en from Iguala” show that the disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Normal Rural School in 2014 was ordered from the United States. According to the text revealed by the newspaper, the heads of that criminal organization gave orders from Chicago to involve police in the detention of students.

According to the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center (PRODH in its Spanish acronym), an organization that accompanied the families of the students, “the messages show the weakness of the so-called “historical truth” of the PGR [Attorney General]. Particularly we refer to the message published with the words: “60 packages already saved and others with San Pedro”, assuming that the word “packages” refers to people, the message was sent on September 27th at 3:28 pm, which is in clear contradiction with the official theory: according to the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) at that time the students would have been executed and incinerated, while the message is clear that at that time they had “saved” packages.

The civil organizations Serapaz, the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, Fundar and the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, noted that what was published by Reforma corroborates that the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) was right to urge the Mexican State to open and exhaust the line of investigation related to the transfer of drugs from Mexico to the United States, specifically from Iguala to Chicago.

The PRODH Center stated that, “almost 43 months after the events, the messages confirm that the case cannot be closed and that the official explanation that has been given is unsatisfactory. In light of the revelation of Reforma, we demand that the PGR exhaust all lines of investigation that emerge from the messages, avoiding a hasty closure with electoral overtones and that the scrutiny of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the collaboration of the North American agencies are increased.”

For more information in Spanish:

Caso Ayotzinapa: Nueva Información de telefonía muestra falencias de versión oficial e impide dar por concluido el caso (Centro Prodh, 12 de abril de 2018)

Guiaron narcos desde Chicago ataques en Iguala (Reforma, 12 de abril de 2018)

Mensajes entre ‘Guerreros Unidos’ muestran “debilidad” de “verdad histórica” del caso Ayotzinapa: Centro Pro (Aristegui, 12 de abril de 2018)

Conversaciones entre líderes de Guerreros Unidos revelan que fueron hasta 60 los desaparecidos en Iguala (Animal Político, 12 de abril de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

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)

Guerrero: caso Ayotzinapa: se exige la entrega de vídeos del Palacio de Justicia de Iguala para conocer lo ocurrido (19 de enero de 2018)

Guerrero: Ayotzinapa, tercera audiencia de oficio en la CIDH: “el gobierno federal no quiere resolver el caso” (26 de octubre de 2017)

Guerrero/Nacional : A tres años de Ayotzinapa (2 de octubre de 2017)

Guerrero: tercera visita del mecanismo de seguimiento de la CIDH sobre le caso Ayotzinapa a casi tres años de los hechos (7 de septiembre)

Guerrero: Sesión de seguimiento de la CIDH del caso Ayotzinapa : avances nulos (10 de julio de 2017)

Guerrero/ Nacional: Madres y padres de los 43 consideran no acudir a la reunión con la PGR y la CIDH (20 de abril de 2017)

Guerrero/National/International: New Reports on Ayotzinapa Case

(@Serapaz)

On March 15th, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights presented the report “Double Injustice”, which analyzes the human rights violations that were committed in the context of the Ayotzinapa investigations (forced disappearance of 43 students from the Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014). 129 people were arrested in this framework. The UN-HR analyzed 34 cases and found “strong evidence of the use of torture, arbitrary arrests and other human rights violations” during and after the arrests. Those involved in these abuses would be elements of the prosecution, the federal police and members of the Navy. For all of the above, the UN-HR urged the Mexican government to identify those responsible for these abuses, as well as their superiors, and bring them to justice. It also called on the prosecution and the judiciary to dismiss evidence obtained under torture.

In response to the report, The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR in its Spanish acronym) said that it is “particularly concerned that the OHCHR report draws conclusions on situations that are currently under investigation, or that are under analysis by the Judiciary”, and specified that the tortures referred to were “exceptional.”

One day before, 41 months after the forced disappearance of the 43 students, several NGOs including Fundar, the Center for Analysis and Investigation, the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, La Montaña Tlachinollan Human Rights Center and Serapaz, presented the report “I just wanted dawn to come. Psycho-social impacts of the Ayotzinapa case”. They pointed out that “the study shows how these impacts have deepened over three years due to impunity, understood not only as the lack of investigation and punishment of those responsible, but also includes the actions of the authorities that have hindered the investigation and manipulated the truth.”

For more information in Spanish:

Autoridades torturaron a detenidos por caso Ayotzinapa para obtener confesiones: ONU (Animal Político, 15 de marzo de 2018)

ONU-DH sobre Ayotzinapa: al menos 34 casos de tortura y una ejecución extrajudicial (Proceso, 15 de marzo de 2018)

Excepcionales, los casos de tortura en caso Ayotzinapa: PGR a ONU-DH (Proceso, 15 de marzo de 2018)

Presentan informe de los “Impactos psicosociales del Caso Ayotzinapa” (Regeneración, 14 de marzo de 2018)

“Te van a ofrecer una cantidad muy alta” (Informe sobre #Ayotzinapa) Aristegui Noticias, 14 de marzo de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

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: Attorney General to Try to Close Ayotzinapa Case by December

Photo @ poesía a mano alzada

On March 2nd in Bogota, Colombia, Alfredo Higuera Bernal, Special Prosecutor for the Iguala Case of the Attorney General PGR in its Spanish acronym, announced during a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) that the PGR had obtained new information on the kidnapping case and the alleged murder of 43 students from Ayotzinapa.

Mexico News Daily reported that the new information obtained includes evidence of motives and allows charges to be brought against 30 people, including municipal police. Special Prosecutor Higuera said that “criminal action may be taken against them” for kidnapping, but did not offer more details. He hoped to have conclusions before the end of the year.

According to Proceso, Mexican human rights organizations have already sent to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, a file on the Ayotzinapa case that includes the reports of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE) on the facts and the evidence that it was a coordinated operation involving criminals and different authorities.

The director of the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, Mario Patron, who was present at the hearing on March 2nd, said, “that it is now appropriate to provide Bensouda with information that proves that the crime against the 43 student teachers is part of a systematic and widespread situation in Mexico: the forced disappearance of people.” After that it is the ICC who will decide who is being investigated, and eventually, if the complaint is successful, which Mexican officials will be charged with criminal charges.

“What we are looking for is for the Ayotzinapa case to be valued among all of the more than 30,000 people who have disappeared in Mexico in the last six years. And what we propose is that Ayotzinapa is a clear example of this phenomenon of macro-criminality in which there is a clear link between organized crime and public power, which becomes one and the same”, Mario Patron said.

For more information in Spanish:

Meade, Peña, Ayotzinapa y el acecho de la Corte Penal Internacional (Proceso, 5 de marzo de 2018)

PGR prepara 30 detenciones por el caso Ayotzinapa (Publi Metro, 3 de marzo de 2018)

Ayotzinapa arrests are imminent: prosecutor (México News Daily, 3 de marzo de 2018)

Mexico ‘Ready to Make Arrests’ in Case of Missing 43 Students (TeleSur TV, 2 de marzo de 2018)

For more information from SIPAZ:

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

Guerrero: Ayotzinapa: Fallece Minerva Bello sin haber obtenido justicia para su hijo desaparecido (8 de febrero 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)

Guerrero: caso Ayotzinapa: se exige la entrega de vídeos del Palacio de Justicia de Iguala para conocer lo ocurrido (19 de enero de 2018)

Guerrero: Ayotzinapa, tercera audiencia de oficio en la CIDH: “el gobierno federal no quiere resolver el caso” (26 de octubre de 2017)

Guerrero/Nacional : A tres años de Ayotzinapa (2 de octubre de 2017)

Guerrero: tercera visita del mecanismo de seguimiento de la CIDH sobre le caso Ayotzinapa a casi tres años de los hechos (7 de septiembre)

Guerrero: Sesión de seguimiento de la CIDH del caso Ayotzinapa : avances nulos (10 de julio de 2017)

Guerrero/ Nacional: Madres y padres de los 43 consideran no acudir a la reunión con la PGR y la CIDH (20 de abril de 2017)

Chiapas: No Progress in the Investigation of the “Extrajudicial Killing” of the Minor Humberto Morales Santiz

Photo @ FNLS

On February 26th, two days before the anniversary of the murder of the minor Humberto Morales Santiz, a forensic report on the minor was delivered by members of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF in its Spanish acronym) to the Indigenous Justice Prosecutor’s Office.

REgarding the report, the Cerezo Committee and the National Front for the Fight for Socialism (FNLS in its Spanish a acronym) reported that “the results of the EAAF are conclusive in the sense that the death of Humberto Morales was due to the fact that he was shot in the head at close range, for which we ratify that his death must be classified as an extrajudicial execution.”

They also denounced that “there is no line of investigation and that in the investigation file there is not only inconsistency, omissions and contradictions but there is a marked intention on the part of the authorities not to investigate.”

According to La Jornada, the murder of Morales Santiz occurred in the context of the land dispute between members of the Organization Emiliano Zapata Organization (OCEZ in its Spanish acronym)-FNLS and the Los Petules group, which belongs to the Organization of Coffee Growers of Ocosingo (ORACO in its Spanish acronym).

For more information in Spanish:

Muerte de menor en Chiapas, “ejecución extrajudicial”: Comité Cerezo (La Jornada, 28 de febrero de 2018)

A un año de cometerse el crimen de Estado contra el compañero Humberto Morales Sántiz (FNLS, 28 de febrero de 2018)

México: A un año de la ejecución extrajudicial del menor Humberto Morales Sántiz del FNLS, no existe ninguna línea de investigación (Kaosenlared, 28 de febrero de 2018)

Acción Urgente – Ejecución Extrajudicial del niño Humberto Morales Sántiz de 13 años de edad, integrante del Frente Nacional de Lucha por el Socialismo en Chiapas. (Comité Cerezo, 4 de Marzo de 2017)

For more information from SIPAZ:

FNLS reporta retraso a la Investigación forense del caso de menor asesinado en Ocosingo (3 de julio de 2017)

Chiapas: Jornada Nacional: “Las víctimas del terrorismo de Estado son del pueblo, no desistiremos ¡hasta encontrarlos!” (14 de marzo de 2017)

Chiapas: “Jornada nacional contra el terrorismo del estado en Chiapas” del FNLS (2 de mayo de 2016)