Since the opening of PBI’s office in Chihuahua in 2013, we have established connections with various civil society organisations, including the Sierra Madre Alliance (Alianza Sierra Madre, A.C., ASMAC) which we have formally accompanied since 2018.
Obtilia Eugenio Manuel defends the rights of the Tlapanec people in the state of Guerrero and founded the Organisation of the Me’phaa Indigenous People (Organización del Pueblo Indígena Me’phaa, OPIM). In November 2019 she received Mexico’s National Human Rights Prize in recognition of her “significant trajectory in effectively promoting and defending” basic human rights. PBI accompanied Manuel between 2005 and 2011.
How and when did you start defending human rights?
For more than a decade, totonaca indigenous communities in the Sierra Norte de Puebla have fought for the survival of their traditions and the defense of their territory. In January of this year, they won an important legal battle against the building of a hydroelectric dam with the local municipality revoking the permits for Puebla 1 to be built, due to illegal activities in the administrative processes.
Although the right to migrate is consecrated in article 13 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, it continues to be violated by different actors.
In Mexico, human rights defenders defend migrants by giving them humanitarian, legal and psychological attention which is often the only support migrants receive as they pass through the country that shares a border with the USA; the most transited border in the world.
On 26th November 2019 Tita Radilla travelled to the Mexican capital to attend an event commemorating the 10 year anniversary of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ sentence in the “Radilla Pacheco v Mexico” case. On the 23 November 2009 the Mexican state was condemned for grave human rights violations in which the military was signalled as responsible for the forced dissapearance of Rosendo Radilla, Tita’s father.
Interview with Yésica Sánchez Maya, feminist lawyer and joint director of Consorcio Oaxaca. Part 2
Consorcio Para el Diálogo Parlamentario y la Equidad Oaxaca, promotes the respect and exercise of women’s human rights and gender equality.
On 25 May 2019 PBI organised a meeting between representatives from the international community and organisations that are dedicated to the defence of land and territory rights in Mexico. Two organisations that PBI accompanies attended, Servicios para una Educación Alternativa A.C (EDUCA) from Oaxaca and the Alianza Sierra Madre A.C (ASMAC) from Chihuahua, as well as the Red de Defensores y Defensores Comunitarios de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (Redcom). Additionally, the Australian, Canadian, Spanish, British and Swiss embassies joined the discussion.
On 21 August 2019, at the Universidad Autonoma de México, Comité Cerezo, the National Campaign Against Forced Disappearances (Campaña Nacional Contra la Desaparición Forzada) and Urgent Action for Human Rights Defenders (Acción Urgente para Defensores de Derechos Humanos) presented their 8th report, “Defending human rights in Mexico, The end of impunity?”.
On June 22, 2019, PBI accompanied EDUCA (Servicios para una Educación Alternativa) at Oaxaca’s first ever “Guelaguetza” against mining, in the municipality San Martín de los Cansecos. Various communities from the Valles Centrales in Oaxaca joined together to commemorate the state’s annual “Rebellion Against Mining Day” and to reaffirm “¡Sí a la vida, no a la minería!”(Yes to life, no to mining!)
In July 2019, PBI accompanied the seventh revision of the Contingency Plan’s working tables, which is a preventive strategy. The report “Turning the Tide on Impunity”, published by WOLA and PBI, values this public policy as an advance of the Federal Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists.