Arbitrary detention

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?

On 6 July, in the context of the 163^rd period of sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Peru, members of the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center (PRODH) and the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, as well as families and representatives of the 43 students of the Normal School of Ayotzinapa who disappeared in September 2014, participated in a session about the special mechanism to monitor the case.

The International Federation of Human Rights (Fidh) and the Fray Juan de Larios Human Rights Center (FJdL) – an organization accompanied by PBI – delivered a report to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on 6 July in which they requested an investigation for crimes against humanity committed in the state of Coahuila between 2009 and 2016.

During the month of April, during the first period of ordinary sessions of Congress, legislative advances were made with regard to the General Law to Prevent, Investigate and Sanction Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading treatment and the General Law on Forced Disappearance and Disappearance Committed by Individuals.