Unión de Productores de San Nicolás Totolapan
Collective work and community support have demonstrated that solidarity and the defence of the collective rights of the indigenous peoples will make their struggle a success.
The Union of Producers of San Nicolas Totolapan is an Nahua indigenous organisation that fights and organises to preserve their peasant way of life, the care of the forest, and the self-determination of their community, strengthening the assemblies and collective work in San Nicolas Totolapan in the highlands of Ajusco-Chichinautzin in Mexico City.
The community's proximity to the city has generated a process of grabbing of their forest and agricultural lands by businessmen and other local actors who have sought to dispossess people of their plots of land. Because of its work in defence of the forests and its constant refusal to sell its land, the Producers' Union has been threatened by organised crime groups and has faced cases of defamation.
Human rights defenders (HRDs) and journalists in Mexico are subject to intimidation, legal harassment, arbitrary detention, death threats, acts of physical aggression, enforced disappearances and killings as a result of their activities in defence of human rights and the exercise of freedom of expression and journalism.
