MOCIPOL presents its report "Desde la mirada ciudadana" © Prometeo Lucero

The Monitor Civil de la Policía presents its report on cases of human rights violations committed by police and security forces in the Mountain Region of Guerrero

PRESS RELEASE MOCIPOL / INSYDE / FUNDAR / Tlachinollan

December 7

• Arbitrary arrests, extortion, threats, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, major violations documented.
• The urgent need to reverse the patterns of violations of human rights requires the involvement of authorities at all levels.
• It is considered necessary to redirect public security towards a citizen security and human rights paradigm to place the people at the heart of its activities.

Mexico D.F. on December 6, 2011 - Monitor Civil de la Policía y de los Cuerpos de Seguridad Pública of the Mountain Region of Guerrero (MOCIPOL), created in late November 2007 by FUNDAR-Analysis and Research Centre, INSYDE-Institute for Security and Democracy and TLACHINOLLAN- Human Rights Centre of The Mountain Region, presented today in Mexico City the report "From a Citizen Viewpoint" [Desde la mirada ciudadana]

The report documented 353 cases of police abuse, being the Ministerial Investigative Police [PIM] the authority that mostly violates the fundamental rights of citizens in the Mountain region of Guerrero. The document also shows that the most frequent violations are the arbitrary detention (183 cases), extortion (124 cases), not immediately appearing before the competent authorities (100), undue fines and / or excessive fines (55), cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment (53), and burglary (29), among others.

In the report, the voices of the victims of these abuses highlight the serious consequences, through the inclusion of paradigmatic cases. It also highlights that 10% of complaints were made by the police themselves, which is discussed in a separate section that includes illustrative case presentations.

From this particular experience, the report shows that the security policy driven at the federal level causes state entities to reproduce the main features, including the militaristic conception and the progressive militarization of public safety, the blurring of local versus federal level, the increasing violations of human rights and stigmatization of victims, and finally the promotion of wide-ranging legislative reforms without enough deliberation. This situation, as shown in the report, are increased in regions like La Montaña Guerrero, one of the most impoverished areas of the country where corruption and impunity prevail. "Desde la mirada ciudadana" identifies that in the Mountain region of Guerrero the municipal police in proportional terms commit fewer violations, although they perform their duties in a precarious situation of institutional neglect, and against the tendency to disappear for these corporations. The report also details that Community Police [Policía Comunitaria] created by the indigenous communities Na'Savi and Me'phaa in the region have better results and fewer complaints. Regarding the other police institutions, the document shows strong data on their performance, understanding of public security as an instrument of social control and protection of institutions, and not as a public service to protect people. This condition, in the specific region of the Mountain, has placed security forces in a residual position for the historical process of militarization of the region, creating conditions of insecurity for the population and weaker enforcement institutions.

The report closes with a series of concrete recommendations, which seek to propose and promote a democratic reform of the police in the Mountain region and the state of Guerrero, to ensure the focus on people, respect for rule of law and human rights, transparency and internal and external oversight. For this, the report indicates the need for a profound renewal focused on accountability, punishment of all human rights violations and creating professional conditions within the institutions so that police can fulfill their mandate. These concrete proposals will be submitted to the Government of Angel Aguirre Rivero, in the days to come. Present at the national report launch were Ernesto Lopez Portillo, Director of Insyde, Miguel Pulido, Director of Fundar, Santiago Aguirre, lawyer of Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre, Matilde Pérez Romero, Coordinator of the MOCIPOL Office in Tlapa, Guerrero, and Elena Azaola, specialist.

In their speeches, the participants concurred that the work of MOCIPOL is ascribed to the civil initiatives promoting the paradigm of "public safety" as opposed to the prevailing idea of, "national security", defended at all costs by the current federal government, and they emphasized that, therefore, it is a pioneer work that shows the relevance of closely monitoring the security institutions, from a perspective that does not oppose human rights to build safer communities. They stressed that today broad sectors of the society demand greater security due to the violence crisis in the country, when year after year public budgets are growing, efforts like the MOCIPOL is doing in the Mountain region are indispensable.

More information

Report (in Spanish) <media 8295>Desde la mirada ciudadana: Monitor Civil de la Policía y de las Fuerzas de Seguridad of La Montaña de Guerrero</media>, Mexico, December 2011

PBI accompaniment of Monitor Civil de la Policía y Fuerzas de Seguridad of La Montaña de Guerrero and of Tlachinollan-Human Rights Centre of La Montaña