Credit: Daniel Cima/IACHR
In a report released March 2, 2016, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Inter-American Commission) has exposed the severity of Mexico’s ongoing human rights crisis. See IACHR, Situation of Human Rights in Mexico (2015). The report relies on information gathered during onsite visits conducted by the IACHR and its rapporteurships, as well as from IACHR hearings, precautionary measures, and petitions concerning specific human rights problems in Mexico. The report highlights the prevailing environment of impunity for human rights abuses and analyzes ongoing grave violations occurring in various regions of the country, most notably enforced disappearances, repression of journalists and human rights defenders, extrajudicial executions, torture, overall insecurity, and barriers to access to justice. [IACHR Press Release: Mexico]
The Inter-American Commission recognizes a large gap between Mexico’s legal framework – including its international human rights obligations – and the reality of the government’s actions, particularly when citizens seek prompt and effective justice, and has made several recommendations to the State on how to strengthen its efforts to protect and uphold human rights in practice. See IACHR, Situation of Human Rights in Mexico at para. 13. Mexico is a State party to several universal and regional human rights treaties, including the American Convention on Human Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances; and the Convention against Torture, and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The American Convention on Human Rights protects the rights to life (Article 4), to humane treatment (Article 5), to personal liberty (Article 7), and to freedom of thought and expression (Article 13), among other fundamental freedoms.
Increased Violence and Human Rights Abuses
The report makes several observations on the increased violence and human rights abuses of the past decade. Some 27,797 people have disappeared and an estimated 151,233 have been killed since extreme levels of violence began during the administration of former president Felipe Calderon and after the launch of the “war on drugs” in 2006. Responding to these initial years of extreme violence, the government increased the role of armed forces in policing duties, an act which served to fuel even greater violence and a surge in human rights violations. See id. at para. 2, 5. The Inter-American Commission notes that a lack of accountability for the enhanced role of armed forces has led to increased violence and gross violations of human rights. See IACHR, Situation of Human Rights in Mexico at paras. 2, 87-88.
Barriers to Access to Justice
The Inter-American Commission found that a lack of trust in the judicial system remains a principal barrier to access to justice. A majority of the citizens who the Inter-American Commission met with said justice in Mexico was a “simulation.” The report indicates that as many as 98% of reported crimes in Mexico go unpunished as a result of lack of due diligence or obstruction of judicial processes by authorities. See id. at paras. 3, 12, 65. Additionally, an overall environment of fear among Mexican citizens, due to the combination of ongoing violence, impunity, and inadequate care for victims and their relatives, has led to serious under reporting of violations. See id. at para. 30. Fear and mistrust of authorities are particularly rampant in marginalized populations who are also disproportionately impacted by human rights violations and abuse, such as immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and the internally displaced; women, children, and adolescents; and human rights defenders, journalists and indigenous peoples. Id.
Harassment of Journalists
The report states that Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to practice journalism and found that the abuse of journalists in retaliation for reporting on certain topics is the main obstacle to freedom of expression in Mexico. Journalists are increasingly the target of killings, disappearances, threats, kidnapping, physical assaults, attacks on media facilities and cyber-attacks. The Inter-American Commission also recognizes that most of the victims are journalists who have filed complaints or reported on administrative corruption in the local arena, on drug trafficking, on organized crime, on public safety or on other related issues. See id. at paras. 374-77, 381.
Enforced Disappearances
The report placed an emphasis on an extensive practice of enforced disappearances carried out by or in complicity with State actors. [IACHR Press Release: Mexico] The Inter-American Commission interviewed relatives of the disappeared who claimed State agents threatened and harassed them in order to prevent them from reporting disappearances. Family members also reported on the many obstacles that arise and prevent resolution when a report is actually filed. See IACHR, Situation of Human Rights in Mexico at para. 126. The State often fails to provide prompt and effective investigations in the case of disappearances. As a result, family members are often responsible for investigating the disappearance of their relatives. [IACHR Press Release: Mexico]
Prominent amongst these disappearances and highlighted in the report as an example of collusion between State agents and members of organized crime is the 2014 case of 43 young students who disappeared in the State of Guerrero allegedly at the hands of Mexican police. See IACHR, Situation of Human Rights in Mexico at para. 9, 143-44. [Guardian] In its report, the Inter-American Commission analyzes serious shortcomings in the government’s investigation of the event, including claims by civil society that the state government failed to get involved in initial actions to identify the missing students. See IACHR, Situation of Human Rights in Mexico at paras. 143-44. The Inter-American Commission commends the Mexican government on its willingness to support the creation of an Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) to investigate the matter, but calls on the government to give the GIEI access to interview military officials who were present during the incident. [IACHR Press Release: Mexico] Criticism of the GIEI, reported by Mexican media, led the Inter-American Commission to reaffirm its support of the experts’ work earlier this year. [New Yorker; IACHR Press Release: GIEI; WOLA]
Torture and Extrajudicial Killings
Along with enforced disappearances, the report analyzes the high volume of torture, killings, and extrajudicial executions taking place in the country. The Inter-American Commission acknowledges evidence of a widespread practice of torture perpetrated by federal and state officials and the armed forces often in the first hours after an individual is detained and before the detained person is brought before a judge. See id. at para. 11
In reference to the problem of killings and extrajudicial executions, the Inter-American Commission analyzes such prominent events as the murder of 22 people in Tlatlaya, tate of Mexico, some of whom were allegedly victims of extrajudicial executions by army soldiers; the death of 16 civilians presumably at the hands of Federal Police in Apatzingán, Michoacán, in January 2015; and the clash that left 42 civilians and one Federal Police dead at the border between Tanhuato and Ecuandureo, Michoacán in June 2015. [IACHR Press Release: Mexico]
Recommendations
The IACHR cites the human rights abuses it has documented in the report in calling for Mexico to ensure that the use of force by State agents complies with the principles of legality, absolute necessity, and proportionality. The Inter-American Commission further demands that Mexico adopt and implement accountability measures that would be subject to independent monitoring in the case of loss of life during public security operations or activities. See id. at para. 10.
Furthermore, the Inter-American Commission calls on Mexico to stop the pattern of reigning impunity and implement an effective system for preventing, investigating, processing, and punishing perpetrators of human rights violations in order to create genuine improvements in peoples’ lives. See id. at para. 538. To this end, the Inter-American Commission offers a series of recommendations in the areas of citizen security, disappearances and forced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial executions, access to justice, the situation of particularly vulnerable persons and groups, and access to information. [IACHR Press Release: Mexico]
Growing Awareness of the Crisis
Rights groups and international human rights bodies also continue to monitor Mexico’s ongoing human rights crisis. A collection of United Nations special rapporteurs have visited the country in recent years. For instance, the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment visited in April 2014 and published a report on his findings in December 2014. The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions visited in April 2013 and published a report in April 2014.
International human rights groups have urged the federal government to take steps to address the growing problem of enforced disappearances. See Human Rights Watch, Mexico’s Disappeared: The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored (2013). Civil society also continues to document the widespread practices of harassment, arbitrary detention, disappearance, and torture, especially in the case of journalists and human rights defenders. See Amnesty International, Paper Promises, Daily Impunity: Mexico’s Torture Epidemic Continues (2015).
The Inter-American Commission itself has consistently documented the continuing deterioration of the human rights situation in Mexico. It has condemned a series of killings of journalists and human rights defenders and criticized the role of government agents in situations of violence. [IACHR Press Release: Journalist Killings; IACHR Press Release: Killing of Human Rights Defender; IACHR Press Release: Law Enforcement Participation]
To learn more about the Inter-American human rights system, visit IJRC’s Online Resource Hub. For an overview of Mexico’s universal human rights obligations, see the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Status of Ratification Interactive Dashboard. To access additional information and photographs of the Inter-American Commission’s visits to Mexico, see its Country Visits webpage. The work of the GIEI is described and documented on the Inter-American Commission’s webpage for the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI).