Legal Experts Fear a New Security Bill Will Set Back Human Rights in Mexico by Decades Worldbulletin News
go to original April 11, 2017

Mexican torture victim speaks out from prison (Amnesty International Canada)

In December 2006, Mexico's then-president Felipe Calderon turned to the military to wage his war on drugs. He argued that the police were too corrupt for the task and needed cleaning up.

Since then, non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International have documented scores of similar cases of torture and abuse in the country.

"For years, we have warned that involving armed forces trained for combat in internal matters, especially in the prosecution of crime, can be a big mistake," said Juan Mendez, the former United Nations envoy for torture, who wrote a report on Mexico.

Currently, more than 50,000 military personnel are deployed throughout Mexico to help fight crime.

Organizations opposed to the proposed internal security law fear that it will give nefarious elements within the military a "blank check" to commit abuses.

Mexico's Congress has been studying proposals from various parties on the military's policing role since last September.

Details of the proposals have yet to be published. But the issue has raised so many red flags that the law may not be approved before the current parliamentary session ends on April 30.

Read the rest at Worldbulletin News

Related: Horrors of the Mexican Drug War: Cartel Violence and the Internet (The Review)

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