CDHM "TLACHINOLLAN" A.C.

NGOs demonstrate the government of Guerrero’s inflexibility towards human rights defenders to the IACHR

Today civil organisations had an audience with the Inter-American High Court.
They explain the patterns of criminalisation implemented by the government of Guerrero against human rights defenders.
They request a visit to Guerrero by the IACHR or rapporteurs.

Tlapa, Guerrero, Mexico, on 22nd October 2008.- Today representatives from the Guerrero Network of Civil Human Rights Organisations had an audience with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), headquartered in Washington D.C. in the United States. They demonstrated that the channels for dialogue within Guerrero government, necessary in order to attend to and resolve the demands made by human rights defenders, are inefficient and inexistent.

Similarly they explained that the authorities feed impunity by failing to investigate cases related to harassment and threats towards human rights defenders, for example in the case of Obtilia Eugenio Manuel, secretary of the Indigenous Me’phaa People’s Organisation (Organización del Pueblo Indígena Me´phaa, OPIM), based in Ayutla.

The audience granted by the IACHR, during its 133^rd session held today, is the result of a joint effort by the civil human rights organisations that form part of the Guerrero network, in collaboration with international organisations, such as the Due Process of Law Foundation, based in Washington D.C.

During one hour (between 2 and 3 in the afternoon, Washington time), the Guerrero Network, represented by the José María Morelos and Pavón Regional Human Rights Centre, the Guerrero Human Rights Institute and Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre, denounced the criminalisation of human rights defenders in Guerrero before the Inter-American High Court. They showed how the Executive branch uses the Judicial branch and even the State Department of Justice to contain social discontent and repress society.

The civil society organisations demonstrated the inexistence of efficient channels for holding a dialogue with the government of Guerrero and getting them to pay attention to the ideas and resolve the demands of human rights defenders. Human rights defenders are to be understood as social activists and the leaders of social organisations that throughout this three year period have been proposing a diversity of legitimate demands related to their economic, social and cultural rights.

Through Abel Barrera Hernández, the director of Tlachinollan, the organisations based their analysis on a series of patterns of criminalisation against human rights defenders. These included: the lack of dialogue with social organisations; the tendency to discredit and delegitimize social activism; the recurring repression of movements that express their protest and the creation of certain crimes that restrict freedom of expression, such as the Dimayuga law.

Similarly, the NGOs emphasised that the Mexican State has ignored the Report on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in the Americas, published in 2006. This report established criteria and parameters that oblige Nation-States to promote and protect the work of human rights defenders.

They said that as a result of this, various organisations have been criminalised, such as the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (Consejo de Ejidos y Comunidades Opositores a La Parota, CECOP), the Community Police, the Chilapa Citizen’s Council, the Regional Council for the Development of the Bátháá People, students from the Ayotzinapa Teacher- Training College, the Ñomdaa Community Radio, the State Coordinator of Eduaction Workers in Guerrero (Coordinadora Estatal de Trabajadores de la Educación en Guerrero, CETEG) and the OPIM.

The organisations for the Guerrero Network that are worried about this panorama asked the IACHR to visit Guerrero. They demanded that the government of Guerrero hold talks with the human rights defenders and a representative from the IACHR, that they recognise the work carried out by human rights defenders and that they repeal articles 200 and 201 from the Penal Code in Guerrero, which criminalise social protest. Furthermore they demanded an exhaustive investigation into the attacks against human rights defenders, carried out by the army and police forces.

Even though the commissioners showed their concern for the lack of efficient mechanisms to protect the activities carried out by human rights defenders, the government representatives from Guerrero didn’t give a clear answer. Neither did they demonstrate clarity with regards to their responsibility for generating dialogue or attending to the demands that have accumulated, due to a lack of institutional channels for resolving them.

Furthermore, the authorities failed to respond to a request from an IACHR commissioner regarding the statements made by the social organisations that there are crimes classified in the Penal Code that persecute human rights defenders. They simply appealed that they are working on a human rights diagnostic, but the commissioners themselves said that they are more interested in knowing about concrete practices or the mechanisms that have been established to be able to work on a human rights defender’s agenda.

The audience was attended by Emily Jolie, coordinator of the Programme for Equal Access to Justice, belonging the Due Process of Law Foundation; Abel Barrera Hernández and Vidulfo Rosales Sierra from Tlachinollan; lawyer, Hegel Mariano Ramírez, from the Guerrero Network and the lawyer from the José María Morelos and Pavón Regional Human Rights Centre.

The delegation from Guerrero government was represented by the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, (Tribunal Superior de Justicia, TSJ), Edmundo Román Pinzón and the deputy attorney for the Care of Victims of crime from the PGJE, Luz Reyes Ríos. Alejandro Negrín, the General Director of Human Rights and Democracy from the Department of Foreign Affairs was representing the federal government.