Human Rights Slip in Latin America in 2014, Says Rights Group HRW Alex Pashley - Anadolu Agency
go to original January 30, 2015

Progress on human rights in Latin America suffered “serious setbacks” in 2014, a prominent U.S. advocacy group said this week.

Human Rights Watch cited cases in Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela, among the 13 countries scrutinized in the region.

Advances in Colombia’s peace talks with a guerrilla group and a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations were positive last year but major violations committed in Mexico’s “abuse-riddled war on drugs,” cast a shadow on the region, according to executive director Kenneth Roth.

In individual country reports, HRW said President Enrique Peña Nieto made “little progress” in prosecuting widespread killings, enforced disappearances and torture committed by soldiers and police since taking office in 2012.

The disappearance and presumed murders of 43 students in Iguala in September – which provoked huge protests calling for Peña Nieto to tackle corruption and abuse surrounding the case – were central.

“Members of all security forces continue to carry out disappearances during the Peña Nieto administration, in some cases, collaborating directly with criminal groups.”

Since 2006, approximately 22,000 people have gone missing, the government said in August 2014, with not a single prosecution for enforced disappearance as of April.

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