PBI-Canada monitoring and amplifying PBI-Mexico’s accompaniment of organizations, defenders and communities
Photo: On March 20, 2025, PBI-Mexico accompanied the People’s Front in Defence of Land and Water at a protest in Mexico City calling for the closure of a landfill.
The Cuernavaca, Morelos-based Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project currently accompanies six organizations. They are:
1-The People’s Front in Defence of Land and Water (FPDTA) in Puebla and Morelos (Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra y el Agua (FPDTA) en Puebla y Morelos)
On February 3, 2025, the newspaper El Universal reported: “Between February 20 and 23, a robust agenda of activities was developed within the framework of the Global Day: Justice for Samir Flores Soberanes. This day was convened by the People’s Front in Defense of Land and Water Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala (FPDTA), the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) with a double purpose: to denounce impunity in the murder of the leader and social communicator Samir Flores after 6 years of judicial paralysis. and to call for the struggle for life and the construction of other possible worlds.”
The People’s Front can be found on Facebook here.
Our most recent article: PBI-Mexico accompanies activities in Amilcingo on the 6th anniversary of the murder of Indigenous Nahua defender Samir Flores Soberanes (February 21, 2025).
2-The CSO Space – Space of Civil Society Organizations for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists in Mexico City (Espacio OSC – Espacio de Organizaciones de la Sociedad Civil para la Protección de Personas Defensoras de Derechos Humanos y Periodistas en Ciudad de México)
On March 4, 2025, the CSO Space posted: “The organizations that make up the Espacio OSC express our deep indignation and energetic condemnation of the recent murders of human rights defender Cristino Castro Perea and journalist Kristian Uriel Martínez. …We call on the authorities to carry out an urgent review of the shortcomings presented in the framework of the collective protection plan and to urgently strengthen the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, as well as to improve coordination between the different states through a National Public Policy for Protection.”
The website for the CSO Space is here.
Our most recent article: PBI-Mexico accompanied Espacio OSC condemn the murders of defender Cristino Castro Perea and journalist Kristian Uriel Martínez (March 5, 2025).
3-The Human Rights Solidarity Network (RSDH) in Michoacán (Red Solidaria de Derechos Humanos (RSDH) en Michoacán)
On March 19, 2025, El Sol de Morelia reported: “A year after the forced disappearance of Chinicuila teacher José Gabriel Pelayo, which occurred on March 19, 2024, his daughter Yulissa Pelayo denounced the omission and lack of action to locate him by the Regional Prosecutor’s Office of Coalcomán, the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) and the Attorney General’s Office (FGR). …In accompaniment of the Human Rights Solidarity Network (DH), [Pelayo’s daughter Yulissa] demanded that the authorities pay greater attention to the issue and that the founder of the Popular Council of Chinicuila be located alive.”
The Facebook page for the Network is here.
Our most recent article: PBI-Mexico accompanies the Human Rights Solidarity Network at the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office on Forced Disappearance (March 20, 2025).
4-The Special Commission for the Search for Persons in Oaxaca (Comisión Especial de Búsqueda de Personas Oaxaca)
There does not appear to be a digital platform for the Special Commission, but the Cerezo Committee has posted: “Delay, lack of coordination and governmental absences in the inspection diligence in the State of Oaxaca for the case of Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez and Edmundo Reyes Amaya… The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation has accepted that it was indeed the Mexican State that was responsible for the forced disappearance of Gabriel and Edmundo and that for the first time in Mexico a Special Search Commission would be formed by court order and that these people, victims of forced disappearance, would really be searched.”
Our most recent article: PBI-Mexico accompanies reconnaissance activities in Oaxaca in the continuing search for EPR members Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez (July 20, 2024).
5-The Ejido El Bajío in Sonora (El ejido El Bajío en Sonora)
The Ejido has explained: “For more than 10 years we have been fighting against the Penmont mining company, owned by the fourth richest man in Mexico, Alberto Baillères González. …The Penmont mining company has carried out exploration and mining exploitation in the territories of the ejido, illegally, since the nineties. In 2009 and 2013, the ejidatarios filed a series of agrarian lawsuits against the mining company; in July 1013, former magistrate Manuel Loya Valverde issued 44 rulings in favor of the ejido, in which he ruled that the mining company must vacate the territory, must return the lands to the state prior to the mining exploitation and must compensate the ejidatarios for the payment of land rents.”
The website for the Ejido is here.
Our most recent article: PBI-UK notes win by farmers against LSE listed mining company in Mexico, the environmental defenders killed after denouncing abuses (January 31, 2025).
6-The Yoreme Alliance in Sonora (La Alianza Yoreme en Sonora)
The Alliance does not appear to have a digital platform, but on May 9, 2024, the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) Mexico posted: “Today, the Yoreme Alliance, made up of the peoples of Bachoco, El Alto, Buaysiacobe, Cohuirimpo, and Masiacahui, is demonstrating at several public offices in Sonora and marching through its streets.” They further explained this was: “in protest of the ‘electoral piggery’ indigenous people have sprouted from business circles and party leaders to usurp rights that are denied to the Yoreme natives.”
Periodismo de lo possible has also explained: “Centuries of dispossession of territory and violence by the state, businessmen and local caciques [political bosses] were forcing the Yoreme population to abandon their roots and divide between villages. But through a long process in which they began to retake the thinking of the elders, the assemblies as a traditional form of government and the history of the ancestors, memory and trust between peoples were strengthened. Until in 2023, they united to assert their identity and defend their territory.”
And Myrna Valencia, a member of the Mayo-Yoreme tribe, has also stated: “The [Mayo] river, that is one of the most important elements of our identity as a tribe, and it is dry…we continue being treated as foreigners in our own territory, led to a way of thinking that undermines diversity.”
We look forward to learning more about this struggle and documenting, contextualizing and amplifying via this website and our social media channels.
Accompaniment
PBI-Canada will be monitoring the PBI-Mexico physical accompaniments of these organizations, defenders and communities.
For updates from PBI-Mexico, you can find them on the social media platforms Facebook, X, Instagram and on this website.
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