PBI-Mexico accompanies Comité Cerezo at release of report on human rights violations

Published by Brent Patterson on

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On August 21, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project posted on their Facebook page, “Yesterday we had the honour of accompanying the presentation of the report Defend Human Rights in Mexico: The End of Impunity?

PBI-Mexico adds, “Each year, the Comité Cerezo together with the Urgent Action for Human Rights Defenders (ACUDDEH) make an annual report on the situation of human rights defenders in Mexico. We applaud this research and analysis.”

PBI-Mexico highlights in their post, “The figures presented remain alarming: from June 2018 to May 2019, the report indicates the record of 38 extrajudicial killings, 348 arbitrary detentions, and 105 human rights violations.”

La Jornada reports, “The report, prepared by the Comité Cerezo, documents the cases of attacks against human rights defenders, civil and social organizations and groups during the last semester of the government of Enrique Peña Nieto and the first of the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.”

That article notes, “Brothers Alejandro and Francisco Cerezo detailed the content of the report: during the last semester of the Peña Nieto government, 64 events were presented that added 822 acts of violation, Veracruz being the entity with the highest number (682), while In the first six months of López Obrador there were 44 acts, with 331 violations, and Guerrero is the state with the most aggressions.”

La Jornada also reported that Jan Jarab, the representative in Mexico of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, participated in the presentation of the report. (You can read more about him in this PBI-Mexico post.)

The article highlighted, “Jarab stressed the need for the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to investigate and resolve not only the cases of serious violations of the human rights of the activists, but all the aggressions, however minimal, as increasingly there is an escalation of violence against this sector.”

Proceso adds, “The document, supervised by the Cerezo Committee, highlights that in terms of extrajudicial executions the tendency is practically the same during the last six months of the Peña Nieto government and the first six months of López Obrador, with 20 and 18 cases, respectively.”

That article notes concerns about violations against “labour human rights defenders”. It also notes “the population of indigenous origin and the defenders of the territory being the main victims” of extrajudicial executions.

It also notes that “in the first months of AMLO half of the perpetrators [of extrajudicial executions] could be identified as members of paramilitary groups.”

And this Pie de Página article quotes Alejandro Cerezo who says, “If the defenders and journalists do not organize themselves, they do not jointly demand from the federal government and the legislature concrete measures to create a public policy that benefits both populations, everything we ask will be unreal and the government will not take us into account. And remember that those who enter this work must demand full compliance with international standards in terms of protection.”

The full 137-page report can be read here.

PBI-Mexico has accompanied the Comité Cerezo since 2002.

Further reading: PBI-Canada and PBI-Mexico meet with Comite Cerezo and PBI-Canada’s Paul Bocking reports on his field visit to Mexico.


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