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

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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

Guerrero: Nine of 25 Detainees from Confrontation in La Concepción in January 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

Guerrero: Release of the CECOP spokesperson, Marco Antonio Suastegui

Marco Antonio Suástegui (Tlachinollan)

On 21 August, the spokesperson for the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP), Marco Antonio Suástegui Muñoz, was released after having been incarcerated for fourteen months. He had been arrested on 17 June 2014 on the charge of having participated together with eight other opponents to the La Parota dam project in a shootout and attempted murder.

The Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, which provides him counsel, reiterated in this sense that “the case of Marco Antonio Suástegui is a clear example of how the ministerial power strives to fabricate charges and act swiftly to criminalize him. This they have done also with Nestora Salgado, Gonzalo Molina, Arturo Campos, and the communal police of Ayutla.”

On various occasions after his release, Marco Antonio Suástegui expressed his gratitude for the support he received, even though “justice is still pending.” He also affirmed that the struggle against the La Parota dam will continue, and he pronounced himself before the media in favor of the release of all political prisoners: “We will struggle for Nestora, Gonzalo, Arturo, and all those communal guardians who are unjustly imprisoned. I believe that CECOP has three objectives at this time. The first is the definitive cancellation of the La Parota dam, the second to request release of political prisoners, and the third to promote development in our communities.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Sale de la cárcel Marco Antonio Suástegui; la lucha sigue, declara el líder del Cecop (El Sur de Acapulco, 22 de agosto)

Demanda Suástegui Muñoz liberar a los presos políticos (La Jornada de Guerrero, 22 de agosto de 2015)

Lo reciben en Salsipuedes con lágrimas, aplausos y consignas por la continuación de la lucha contra la presa (El Sur, 22 de agosto de 2015)

La apuesta por la justicia (Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña, Tlachinollan, 24 de prestezaagosto de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero: Marco Antonio Suastegui, opponent to the La Parota dam, is ordered to return to a Guerrero prison (8 February 2015)

Guerrero: The Navy has tried to arrest him, denounces brother of CECOP spokesperson (30 December 2014)

Guerrero: Attack on CECOP members leaves 5 dead (6 December 2014)

Guerrero: Arrest of a leader of the opposition to the La Parota Dam (23 June 2014)

Guerrero: One year since the arrest of the CECOP leader, Marco Antonio Suastégui

Photo @Pueblo Guerrero

Members of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP) protested on 17 June at the offices of the Judiciary in Acapulco, where they demanded that authorities from the three levels of government immediately release their leader Marco Antonio Suástegui, alleging his innocence, with this being the reason they will not rest until he is free. Marco Antonio Suástegui, who has been imprisoned for a year, founded the Communal Police in the Common Lands of Cacahuatepec, and for years he opposed the La Parota hydroelectric dam project. Upon the completion of a year since the arrest of the CECOP leader, the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights urged the Superior Tribunal for State Justice, based in Acapulco, to resolve the three appeals that have been presented against the prison sentence. The organization denounced that the Tribunal “has delayed its decisions on the appeals for no reason, thus prolonging the process.” It also said that the motions against imprisonment demonstrated violations to due process, including the fact that, at the time that Suastégui declared himself, he was not allowed to have an attorney present.

For more information (in Spanish):

Protestan integrantes de la CECOP; piden la libertad de Marco Antonio Suástegui (Bajo Palabra, 17 de junio de 2015)

Ha dilatado las decisiones sobre los recursos de apelación en el caso de Marco Antonio Suástegui sin fundamento alguno, retrasando el proceso, acusó Tlachinollan (Pueblo Guerrero, 18 de junio de 2015)

CECOP protesta en el poder Judicial en Acapulco (Pueblo Guerrero, 17 de junio de 2015)

Video Libertad para Marco Antonio Suastégui (Tlachinollan)

Caso la Parota (Tlachinollan)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero: return of CECOP spokesperson to Guerrero prison (23 April 2015)

Guerrero: The Navy has tried to arrest him, denounces brother of CECOP spokesperson (30 December 2014)

Guerrero: Attack on CECOP members leaves 5 dead (6 December 2014)

Guerrero/National: Transfer of Nestora Salgado to a Mexico City prison

(@La Opinión)

After 17 months of solitary confinement in the federal prison of Tepic, Nayarit, Nestora Salgado was transferred on 29 May to the Femenil Center for Social Readaptation “Tepepan” in Mexico City.

The coordinator of the Communal Police (PC) of Olinalá was arrested on 21 August 2013, accused of kidnapping. After numerous attempts to have her released, on 5 May she undertook a hunger strike and refused to consume liquids for 5 days.

From the Medical Tower of the prison, where Nestora is attempting to recover her physical and menatl health, she declared in an interview with La Jornada: “I do not request amnesty. Everyone knows I am a political prisoner, that I was subjected to an arbitrary arrest. They know that they have violated all my rights, individual and constitutional.”

“They wanted to end my life—to make me go crazy. But they failed. I was all those months imprisoned without combing my hair. I didn’t even have the right to a hairbrush or toothbrush.” From this, she demands her release and that of her two comrades from the Regional Coordination of Communal Authorities (CRAC), who have also undertaken hunger strikes, together with a comrade from the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP).

For more information (in Spanish):

Yo no pido amnistía, todo mundo sabe que soy una presa política (La Jornada, 1 de junio de 2015)

Nestora Salgado, en “delicado estado de salud” (Proceso, 1 de junio de 2015)

Trasladan a Nestora Salgado a la ciudad de México (La Jornada, 29 de mayo de 2015)

Activista Nestora Salgado inicia huelga de hambre (Cimac Noticias, 8 de mayo de 2015)

Vuelve a tomar líquidos Nestora Salgado; cumple 26 días en huelga de hambre (El Sur, 31 de mayo de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero: Still on hunger strike, Nestora Salgado continues to hope for transfer as her health declines (9 June 2015)

Guerrero: political prisoner Nestora Salgado, coordinator of the Communal Police of Olinalá, begins hunger strike (16 May 2015)

Guerrero: IACHR calls on Mexican government to guarantee medical attention to Nestora Salgado (8 February 2015)

Guerrero: return of CECOP spokesperson to Guerrero prison

Marco Antonio Suastegui (@Tlachinollan 2012)

On 31 March, Marco Antonio Suástegui Muñoz, spokesperson of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP), was transferred to the La Unión prison in Guerrero state from the maximum-security prison of Tepic, Nayarit, where he had been held since June 2014.  María de Jesús, Muñoz’s wife, indicated that her husband experienced poor conditions for ninth months, lacking medical attention after having been tortured, but she affirmed that “justice was done, because he is innocent and only struggles in favor of his ideals.  We will not rest until he returns free.”

The Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, which represents the CECOP spokesperson, denounced in a communique that the “Guerrero state government took an inordinately long time to transfer Marco Antonio to Guerrero by imposing an extraordinary review via the General Director for Social Reinsertion in Guerrero State which was then suspended; still, the Collegiate Tribunal had already admitted it had assessed the case.  These extraordinary legal actions, which contrast with the public messages communicated by the state executive against CECOP, show clear evidence of the lack of political will and the arbitrary use of the juridical system on the part of the Guerrero state government, toward the sole end of continuing the criminalization of human-rights defenders.”

Tlachinollan also demanded that “the state government of Guerrero guarantee the security of Marco Antonio Suástegui within La Unión prison and full access to his relatives and defense-team, as well as to abstain from taking any other action that would violate his rights to an adequate legal defense.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Regresan a Marco Antonio Suástegui al reclusorio de La Unión, procedente de Tepic (El Sur, 1ero de abril de 2014)

Fue torturado en Acapulco y en Tepic nunca tuvo atención médica, denuncia Suástegui (El Sur, 3 de abril de 2014)

Trasladan a penal de Guerrero a defensor comunitario criminalizando por la defensa del territorio (Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña, Tlachinollan, 1ero de abril de 2015)

México debe proteger a Marco Antonio Suástegui Muñoz quien ha sido trasladado a un penal en Guerrero (Amnistía Internacional , abril de 2015)

Traslado a Guerrero de Marco Antonio Suástegui (Front Line Defenders, abril de 2015)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero: Marco Antonio Suastegui, opponent to the La Parota dam, is ordered to return to a Guerreo state prison (30 de enero de 2015)

Guerrero: The Navy has tried to arrest him, denounces brother of CECOP spokesperson (30 December 2014)

Guerrero: Attack on CECOP members leaves 5 dead (6 December 2014)

Guerrero: Arrest of María de la Cruz Dorantes, CECOP member (25 October 2014)

Guerrero: demand for release of political prisoners in observance of the eleventh anniversary of CECOP (2 September 2014)

Guerrero: soldiers and policemen burst into the La Concepción Commmunity after a Cecop assembly in which the case of Marco Antonio Muñoz Suástegui was reported on (29 August 2014)

Guerrero: Arrest of a leader of the opposition to the La Parota Dam (23 June 2014)