Human Rights Watch Urges Mexico to Build Accurate Database of Disappeared Human Rights Watch
go to original November 13, 2013

Through in-depth research in five states, Human Rights Watch documented scores of cases of disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and torture carried out by security forces. (HumanRightsWatch)

The Mexican government should ensure that the process of developing a national database of the disappeared is thorough, efficient, and transparent, Human Rights Watch said this week. Development of the database should be coupled with serious investigations to determine the fate of thousands of people who remain unaccounted for.

The government announced in February 2013 that it was revising a database of more than 26,000 people reported disappeared or missing (extraviadas) that had been compiled by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (PGR). The government has said that many of the names in the database are likely to be removed. There are substantial problems with the original list, including inconsistencies and incomplete data, and it lacks the names of many people reported disappeared.

“The Peña Nieto government took an important step toward acknowledging the scale of the disappearance crisis when it released its provisional list of disappeared and missing people,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Now the government needs to live up to its promise to develop a reliable, comprehensive registry, accompanied by serious investigations to search for the disappeared and bring those responsible to justice.”

On February 20, Human Rights Watch released a report, “Mexico’s Disappeared: The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored,” which found that Mexican security forces had participated in widespread enforced disappearances in the context of former president Felipe Calderón’s “war on drugs,” from December 2006 to December 2012.

Read the rest at Human Rights Watch

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