Mexico

Active Cases

Mexico: Threats, attacks and false accusations against members of CDHLVT

Front Line is deeply concerned following reports that charges have been brought against Martín Amaru Barrios Hernández, and that Reyna Ramírez has been attacked and threatened. The two human rights defenders are members of the Comisión de Derechos Humanos y Laborales del Valle de Tehuacán (CDHLVT – the Commission of Human and Labour Rights in Tehuacán Valley), an organisation which documents and reports labour and environmental human rights violations in Tehuacán Valley, Puebla.  

• attacks
• CDHLVT
• false accusations
• Front Line
• human rights
• Human Rights Defenders
• Mexico
• the Comisión de Derechos Humanos y Laborales del Valle de Tehuacán
• threats

• Mexico

Mexico: Continued detention of five indigenous rights defenders and risk of imminent arrest of another ten defenders

Front Line is deeply concerned following reports of the continued detention of Natalio Ortega Cruz, Romualdo Santiago Enedina, Raúl Hernández Abundio, Orlando Manzanarez Lorenzo and Manuel Cruz Victoriano, all of whom are members of the Organización del Pueblo Indígena Me'phaa (Organisation of the Me'phaa Indigenous People, OPIM). They were arrested on 18 April 2008 and detained in Ayutla, in the State of Guerrero, and are among a group of fifteen OPIM members whose arrests had been ordered on 11 April 2008. The remaining ten members of the OPIM are reportedly at risk of arrest at any time. Since 2002, the OPIM has worked in the defence of indigenous rights in the communities of Ayutla de los Libres and Acatepec, Costa Montaña de Guerrero.  

• arrest
• Front Line
• human rights
• Human Rights Defenders
• Mexico
• risk of arrest

• Mexico

Human rights defenders in México are subject to acts of intimidation including continuous surveillance, judicial harassment, arbitrary arrests, death threats, forced disappearances and killings as a result of their activities in defence of human rights.

Journalists, environmentalists, women activists and defenders who work with local communities are particularly at risk. According to the Mexican government there are between 600 and 650 human rights organisations working in Mexico. The National Network of Human Rights Civil Organs Red Nacional de Organismos Civiles de Derechos Humanos “Todos los derechos humanos”(Red TDT) was established more than 15 years ago. The Network consists of 54 human rights orgnaisations in 19 states and Federal district. Specific rights which are of particular concern to human rights defenders in Mexico include rights related to health, housing, food, labour, environment, peace or the rights of specific groups in society including women, children, indigenous peoples and other vulnerable groups. Human rights organisations and defenders in Mexico are becoming more familiar with the international mechanisms established for the protection of human rights and are making more frequent use of these mechanisms. The Mexican government in recognition of the importance of human rights established the Commission for Governmental Policy in Respect of Human Rights and has enacted in February 2004 the Federal Law to Strengthen the Activities Carried out by Civil Society Organisations (la Ley Federal de Fomento a las Actividades Realizadas por las Organizaciones de la Sociedad Civil) which establishes both the rights and obligations of these organisations.