On 10 June Abel Barrera from the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. During the meeting Mr. Barrera expressed concern about the impunity in the case of the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa.
On 9 June, the Governor of the State of Chihuahua, Javier Corral, and the Under Secretary of Human Rights from the Secretary of the Interior, Roberto Campa Cifrian, signed the Contingency Plan which was created from the early warning system for the protection of human rights defenders and journalists in Chihuahua.
On May 30, 31 and June 1, in Mexico City, the Latin American Meeting “Strategies of Protection for the defence of territory” was held. With the support of ProtectDefenders.eu, this event was organised by a group of international, regional and local organisations that support processes for the protection of human rights defenders, especially those who work in the defence of land and territory.
Civil Society Organizations in Chihauhua salute the passage of an integral reform of the Chihuhua State Prosecutor’s Office by the State Congress, which will include the creation of a Special Prosecutor for the Investigation of Human Rights Violations in the state.
Between 12 and 22 May, the Caravan in Search of the Disappeared Alive – made up of collectives from 25 cities and 12 states in Mexico and the US — took place in the municipalities of Torreon, Saltillo, Monclova, Allende and Piedras Negras, Coahuila.
According to the CNDH, in recent years the flow of migrants that transit through Mexico have increased, and migration patterns have become more complex. To respond to the needs of undocumented migrants that pass through the municipality of Chahuites, in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in 2014 the priest Alejandro Solalinde Guerra founded the Center for Attention and Humanitarian Aid for Migrants as an extension of the Brothers on the Path Migrant Shelter, in Ixtepec.
On 10 May, human rights defender and mother of a disappeared daughter Miriam Elizabeth Rodriquez Martinez was murdered in the state of Tamaulipas. May 10 is Mother’s Day in Mexico, and for the last 6 years on this date, family members of the disappeared in different parts of the country have carried out the “March for National Dignity: Mothers in Search of their Sons, Daughters, Truth, and Justice”.
In a recent opinion column, Jan Jarab, representative of the OHCHR in Mexico, analysed the security situation of journalists and HRDs in Mexico and characterized the first four months of 2017 as “chilling”, due to the murder of at least five journalists, two HRDs, and two guards assigned to protect beneficiaries of the National Protection Mechanism.
The Mexican government must guarantee protections for those who search for disappeared relatives and address the crisis of disappearances in the country
In a communique published in May, Services for an Alternative Education (EDUCA) denounced that in the first half of the year, the civil society organization suffered defamation, aggressions and criminalization due to their work in defense and promotion of human rights.