PBI-Mexico and PBI-Germany meet with the Cerezo Committee in Mexico City

On March 24, the Cerezo Committee posted:

“Thanks for the view and the talk with a member of the Peace Brigades International Germany and a member of the team in Mexico. This was yesterday March 23rd.”

The PBI-Mexico website has explained: “The Cerezo Committee was established after the arrests, torture and detentions of the brothers Alejandro, Héctor and Antonio Cerezo Contreras in maximum-security penitentiaries in Mexico. It was founded by Francisco and Emiliana Cerezo in solidarity with their detained brothers, now regarded by international organisations as political prisoners.”

It adds: “The Committee currently defends the rights of victims of political repression in Mexico. It is a leading organisation in the documentation of human rights violations in the country, also documenting violations committed against human rights defenders. This has allowed the Committee to publish high-quality reports and analyses. The Cerezo Committee has become a reference in capacity-building on human rights issues, documentation and security for civil society. In addition to surviving torture and unjust detention, the organisation’s members have been threatened and harassed.”

Cerezo Committee report on extrajudicial executions

Earlier this year, Once Noticias reported:

“The Cerezo Committee, an organization in defense of human rights, reported that during 2022, 22 defenders were killed, of which 18 were men and four were women.

In eight cases, it is known that the victims were human rights defenders who belonged to an indigenous people, in twelve cases they were mestizo, one case was of an Afro-descendant person and in one case it was not possible to determine the belonging of the victim.

The organization points out that these killings were carried out for political reasons, that is, as a form of punishment for the activity they carried out, in addition to the fact that the perpetrators were agents of the State.”

For more, please also see: 22 Human Rights Defenders Extrajudicially Executed in 2022 (Cerezo Committee report, January 10, 2023).

You can also visit the Cerezo Committee website here.

PBI-Mexico started accompanying the Cerezo Committee in 2002.