Front Line welcomes the release from prison of indigenous rights defenders Messrs Natalio Ortega Cruz, Romualdo Santiago Enedina, Orlando Manzanarez Lorenzo, and Manuel Cruz Victoriano, on 19 March 2009. The aforementioned indigenous rights defenders make up four of the five members of the Organización del Pueblo Indígena Me'phaa – OPIM (Indigenous Me'phaa People's Organisation) who were the subject of a Front Line urgent appeal issued on 30 May 2008 after they had been arrested and detained on 18 April 2008. However, Front Line expresses concern that Mr Raúl Hernández Abundió, a fifth member of the OPIM who was detained at the same time as the other four, remains in detention.

Further Information

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.

All five members of the OPIM listed above were arrested on 18 April 2008 for the murder of Alejandro Feliciano García, a man who was reportedly linked to the Army and the police, on 1 January 2008. Two witnesses, who did not see the murder itself, reported hearing five gun shots and seeing Raúl Hernández Abundió and five others carrying Alejandro Feliciano García's body to a truck. However, the witnesses allegedly only saw the body being taken away from a distance when there was very little light at approximately 1 a.m. Moreover, a forensic expert concluded that the cause of death was a head injury whilst the autopsy found that the victim had died from bullet wounds. . In detention the OPIM members were reportedly interrogated and tortured physically and psychologically so that they would confess a crime which they did not commit.

While the police only arrested the five defenders listed above, the arrest warrant signed by the Examining Magistrate of the Judicial District of Allende, Judge Alfredo Sánchez Sánchez, also ordered the arrest of ten other OPIM members. They were eventually not detained, but the arrest warrant remains pending against them.

The OPIM has been receiving threats for a number of years. The threats have intensified since the organisation began campaigns on behalf of two indigenous Me'phaa women, Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantu, who were reportedly raped by members of the Mexican Army in 2002, and on the forced sterilisation of fourteen Me'phaa men in the community of El Camalote in 1998 (a case in which the IACHR ruled in favour of the victims – case 66/2007). On 9 February 2008, the brother of Ms Inés Fernández Ortega, who is also member of the OPIM, was found dead and his body showed obvious signs of torture. No autopsy was carried out.

Whilst Front Line welcomes the release of Natalio Ortega Cruz, Romualdo Santiago Enedina, Orlando Manzanarez Lorenzo and Manuel Cruz Victoriano, concern is expressed at the ongoing detention of Raúl Hernández Abundió. Front Line believes that his detention is directly related to his work in the defence of human rights, in particular his work in the defence of the rights of indigenous communities in Mexico. Front Line is also concerned that the arrest warrant against ten more members of OPIM, although never enforced, remains pending against them.