PBI-Mexico joins call for the release of Indigenous land and water defender Miguel López Vega

On January 27, this media release highlighted, “On January 24, the human rights defender, community communicator and journalist MIGUEL LÓPEZ VEGA, member of the Land and Water Defense Front of the States of Puebla, Morelos and Tlaxcala (FPDTA-MPT) … was arrested by elements of the Prosecutor’s Office of Puebla…”

“The FPDTA-MPT is made up of different communities from the three states that since 2012 are being affected by the Morelos Integral Project (PIM), which consists of a gas pipeline, two thermoelectric plants, an aqueduct and the industrialization of the Cuautla Valley.”

“Recently, Miguel López and other defenders of the community of Santa María Zacatepec have denounced the threats and aggressions they have faced because of the defense of the Metlapanapa River, in which a sewage system is being built for the spillage of toxic waste.”

“This detention is an act against the right to defend human rights and the exercise of freedom of expression and criminalization of the protest, as well as an attempt to intimidate the community to stop fighting against the contamination of its river.”

“The signatory organizations recognize the work of Miguel López Vega as a defender of human rights and the right to territory. We express our full solidarity with him, with his community, with the FPDTA-MPT and with the organizations defending the territory and water, who suffer this new aggression that adds to so many others, among them the murder of the defender of the territory and community communicator Samir Flores, who, like Miguel, defended his community from PIM, was committed eleven months ago and continues in impunity.”

“We demand from the Attorney General of the State of Puebla the immediate release of the human rights defender and community communicator Miguel López Vega and the cessation of the criminalization of the activities of defense of the land and territory of the community of Santa María Zacatepec, including other possible arrest warrants.”

To read the full media release, please click here or here.

For more on the PIM and the death of Samir Flores, please see this rabble.ca article.