Raúl Hernández Abundió

Human rights defender Mr Raúl Hernández Abundió has been released after spending over two years in prison in connection to a crime he did not commit.

Further Information

On Friday 27 August 2010, a court hearing took place during which the Judge of First Instance, Alfredo Sánchez Sánchez, ordered the immediate and unconditional release of Raúl Hernández Abundió, stating officially that the human rights defender “is neither guilty nor judicially responsible for the murder of Alejandro Feliciando García, which occurred in January 2008.”

Raúl Hernández Abundió was originally arrested in April 2008 and was accused of the murder of Alejandro Feliciando García, an alleged police informer. Substantial evidence was presented at his trial proving that the human rights defender was innocent. The investigative judge who visited the crime scene declared that the declaration of the principal eyewitness to the case was unreliable. Furthermore, several defence witnesses presented evidence that Raúl Hernández Abundió was not at the scene of the crime on the date or at the time of the murder. Nevertheless, on 6 August the State Attorney General's Office of Guerrero requested during the presentation of concluding remarks that Raúl Hernández Abundió serve the maximum sentence of 50 years in prison.

Raúl Hernández Abundió is an indigenous human rights defender with the Organización del Pueblo Indígena Me'phaa – OPIM (Indigenous Me'phaa People's Organisation), which works in the defence of the rights of indigenous peoples in the communities of Ayutla de los Libres and Acatepec, Costa Montaña de Guerrero. Members of the OPIM have been receiving death threats for several years, such that to date 107 members have been granted provisional security measures by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It is widely believed that the arrest of Raúl Hernández Abundió was politically motivated and a direct attempt to curb his legitimate activities in the defence of the rights of Guerrero's indigenous peoples, particularly his investigation of abuses committed by the region's military, authorities and chiefs (known colloquially as “caciques”)

In a telephone interview after his release on the afternoon of 27 August, Raúl Hernández Abundió stated that he felt happy, “now that they have given me my liberty,” and that “we will continue to work so that they give us infrastructure, schools, medical clinics; we will continue to struggle, and I will continue to work.”

Front Line welcomes the release and unconditional pardon of Raúl Hernández Abundió. However, Front Line urges the Mexican authorities to immediately ensure an end to all forms of harassment and intimidation against Raúl Hernández Abundió and other members of OPIM, and to guarantee their physical and psychological integrity.

In addition, Front Line respectfully reminds the Mexican Government of its obligations under the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, in particular Article 9 (1): “In the exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the promotion and protection of human rights as referred to in the present Declaration, everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to benefit from an effective remedy and to be protected in the event of the violation of those rights.”