On February 12, PBI-Canada and PBI-Mexico, alongside the Space for Civil Society Organizations for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists (Espacio OSC), organized a webinar on the strengthening of the Protection Mechanism for human rights defenders and journalists in Mexico.
You can watch the webinar in Spanish here.
In response to a question about the Protection Mechanism and Canadian companies in Mexico, Mario Hurtado Cardozo of Espacio OSC stated:
“Violence against human rights defenders and journalists doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in a very specific context where you have different interests that all come together: economic interests, state interests, institutional interests, and institutional impunity.
With extractive projects and infrastructure there are a lot of Canadian interests, particularly in mining. There are a lot of Canadian companies involved in mining. …And a lot of them are on Indigenous territories. Lots of them haven’t gone through the proper free, prior and informed consent. And they’ve had huge social, cultural, and environmental impacts. Huge impacts on the criminalization of protests when communities oppose the imposition of these projects. …And violating the rights of Indigenous peoples. As well as the attacks against journalists who document these things in compliance with their role.
To give you some specific cases.
Equinox Gold – Los Filos mine in Eduardo Neri, Guerrero
One is the Los Filos in Guerrero. This is Equinox Gold, a Canadian company, and there is constant issues with Indigenous communities because of the environmental impacts and the ways it is affecting their access to water. There is also the presence of criminal groups. Human rights defenders who were demanding consultation and reparations have been threatened and harassed and have had threats against their lives. …The protection mechanism needs to respond to this in a community way to be effective. Unfortunately, today there’s a lot to do in the federal protection mechanism in terms of a community response for protection.
Fortuna Silver Mines – San José mine in San José del Progreso, Oaxaca
There is also El Progreso in Oaxaca that is linked to Fortuna mining, the Canadian company. There has been killings and attacks against human rights defenders, acts of criminalization, and also fragmentation of the community with those in favour of the mining initiative and those who are against. There is continued risk for the leaders and journalists who are documenting the impacts of this project. In this case there has been no sanctions and completely without justice. And so the protection mechanism has done nothing, there just doing palliative measures. So, one of the things we’ve said a lot, not to the mechanism specifically because there are lots of different bodies, and because the Attorney General’s office is also involved, but they need to be much more proactive in the investigations when violations have taken place. …When crimes are committed against defenders, they really need to push forward with investigations into that.
New Gold – Cerro de San Pedro mine in San Luis Potosí
And there’s San Pedro de Potosi which is linked to New Gold, another Canadian company, and there has been a long, long court case. They found in favour of the community. The aggression here is the court system. And so some don’t see it as an attack because they are not attacking the life of people, but it can be selling someone’s name, or attacking their economic viability, and also freedom. So, what we have said in this way, is that the mechanism should also be much more proactive in this sense. Coordinating with the public defence bodies when human rights defenders are being criminalized in this way and providing them with a much better defence, and also support to victims and making sure they have proper representation, and given them support in the costs that are involved in civil or criminal cases when they are criminalized in this way.
Common patterns
And so very common patterns. Projects that are imposed without any guarantees, criminalization of the defence of rights, a state response that is very fragmented. So when we are faced with this the protection mechanism is indispensable but at the moment it is completely failing, it needs to get stronger and it needs to get much more active and collaborate much better with the other bodies that are involved. It needs to be proactive in community, individual, and all of these different ways. It needs to be an integrated approach. Many of these risks are territorial and collective and it needs to recognize that and therefore the protection mechanism must cover these measures and not just individual protection measures.
In a country where 90 per cent of crimes against human rights defenders and journalists are not brought to justice, this injustice means there are no guarantees for non-repetition. They need to coordinate with other bodies in the state and also recognize the role of transnational companies, there needs to be things related to due diligence in terms of human rights, and so with megaprojects, such as the Canadian involvement in Mexico, they often happen in these areas of conflict, so you need this integrated policy to deal with it. They also need to seek to create situations in which human rights defenders and journalists can do their work safely. This isn’t a favour the state is giving them, it’s a state’s duty. The state needs to work together in all of its different instances to make sure this response actually protects human rights defenders.
What would it mean to actually integrate the protection mechanism into all of these different bodies? Environmental issues, environmental impact, consultation, identification of risks, all of the channeling of cases, all of these different bodies need to take a proactive role, they need to work together, for education, awareness raising, prevention and all these different things. If all of these act together, it can be stronger and also increase the willingness of the higher level bodies in the state to make sure investment, human rights, the rule of law, and protection can actually be promoted, and to ensure that human rights defenders and journalists can be safe in their work.”
To listen to this response in Spanish, go to the 52-minute mark here.
