PBI-Mexico accompanies organizations at 2nd Regional Forum for a General Law to protect human rights defenders and journalists

On February 18, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project tweeted: “This week we accompanied the organizations that met with authorities in Oaxaca in the framework of the 2nd Regional Forum for the discussion around the initiative of the Law for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists.”

Their Twitter thread adds:

“Human rights defenders and journalists denounced the serious situation in the state. As indicated by @EspacioOsc [the 18 organizations form the Civil Society Organizations Space], Oaxaca is the 2nd state with the highest number of human rights defenders and journalists with protection measures.”

“The participants also pointed out that ‘a General Law cannot be the only response to the context of crisis and high risk that exists in Oaxaca and Mexico’.”

“From @PBI_Mexico we call for the Mexican State to integrate the contributions and requests made by the human rights defenders and journalists. And to continue building based on the agreements reached at the end of this 2nd forum.”

The PBI-Mexico Twitter thread also links to this statement: Organizations and journalists get SEGOB to commit to opening forums in regions of Oaxaca.

Key excerpts from that statement include:

“On February 16 and 17, the second Regional Forum to Promote an Initiative for a General Law on prevention and protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists was held in Oaxaca City… The objective was to analyze the proposal of General Law promoted by SEGOB [Ministry of the Interior], to make contributions and suggestions in the particular context of Oaxaca [where 11 journalists have been killed sine 2013].”

“During the event, the defenders and journalists denounced the serious situation in the state, recalling that Oaxaca is mourning the murder of journalist Heber López on February 10 in Salina Cruz, and also recalled that in Mexico at least five journalists and two defenders have been killed in 2022.”

“The representatives of civil society who participated during the two days reiterated that the two indispensable aspects for the prevention and protection of defenders and journalists are to guarantee sufficient human and financial resources for the implementation of a new law, as well as to move towards the eradication of impunity [of the 133 journalists killed in Mexico since 2000, nearly 90 percent have gone unpunished], guaranteeing effective and binding mechanisms for punishing the authorities responsible for aggression, whether by action or omission.”

The Civil Society Organizations (OSC) Space (Espacio) for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists (Espacio_OSC) is a coordination platform of 18 civil society organizations from throughout Mexico.

Espacio_OSC is accompanied by PBI-Mexico.

“Organizations and journalists get SEGOB [Secretaría de Gobernación/Ministry of the Interior] to commit to opening forums in regions in Oaxaca.”