Human Rights Activists Not Protected by Mexican Government's Mechanism for Protection Arturo Angel - Animal Politico
go to original August 7, 2015

Panic buttons with no connection, emergency telephones that no one answers, police patrols that don’t happen, security cameras that take months to be installed, non-existent follow-up on investigations… this is how the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists ['Mechanism'] “functions”.

The flaws in this program - created in June 2012, in theory, to protect journalists and activists whose work put them at risk - were exposed through the effort of hundreds of civic and international organizations that conducted an assessment of the operation. The conclusion is that the 'Mechanism' today is incomplete, non-transparent, and often times useless.

It turns out that in the last three years, nothing has changed in practice. A striking fact to demonstrate the point: according to the organizations’ assessment - based on statistics provided by the Cerezo Committee’s National Campaign Against Forced Disappearances - from June 2012 to May 2014, the number of human rights defenders extrajudicially executed in Mexico totaled 32.

Although those numbers don’t necessarily correspond with people protected by the 'Mechanism', a review of 59 cases in which protection was sought produces evidence of flaws in the system that neither aids nor protects the people, nor does it shine light on the problem in order to prompt better public policies.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Julie Kawamura

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico - on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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