Mexico

By Amnesty Americas Media Manager Tuncan Tucker

Jessica Silva and her husband Jaime Torres were driving through Delicias, a town in the northern state of Chihuahua, late on 8 September when members of Mexico’s National Guard attacked them.

That afternoon they had joined thousands of agricultural workers in a tense protest at La Boquilla, a nearby dam, to defend their right to water. The National Guard fired tear gas at the demonstrators, who were armed with bats, poles and rocks. Undeterred, the protesters managed to seize control of the dam, forcing the soldiers to retreat. 

As Silva and Torres made their way home that night, members of the National Guard opened fire on their vehicle. A witness told Amnesty International he saw two National Guard trucks pass by and heard five or six gunshots. Torres, a walnut and alfalfa farmer, was seriously wounded, while Silva, a 35-year-old homemaker and agricultural worker with three teenage children, died instantly.

On 30 March, Public Security officials in Mexico replaced two police escorts protecting Clemencia Adelaida Salas Salazar with one officer who had limited functions. They cited pandemic restrictions as the reason but that made Adelaida considerably more vulnerable to further attacks for the work she was doing to defend women’s sexual and reproductive rights.

Amnesty launched UA 58/20 on April 20. Urgent Action writers responded by sending messages to the Governor of Yucatán state and received replies from three different authorities. The threats and attacks stopped and in May, the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders restored full safety measures for Adelaida. There’s power in those pens and keyboards! 

To learn how you can join the Urgent Action Network, check out our website here. 

From October 22th to 26th, Amnesty Canada's Alex Neve joined a global Amnesty delegation to monitor the impact of anti-asylum policies at the US-Mexico border. They met with the consul general of Mexico in San Diego, the National Commission of Human Rights in Tijuana, visited shelters in Tijuana and San Diego, met with NGOs and UN agencies on both sides of the border, and met with legal aid providers and toured a shelter for unaccompanied children in Brownsville, TX. On their last day, the group crossed the border into Matamoros, Mexico to speak with families and others who have been affected by the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy.

Matamoros, Mexico

“Some days we cry.  Some days we laugh.  And we are here to lift each other up when we are down.”

In reaction to the public statement by Under Secretary for Human Rights Alejandro Encinas announcing Mexico's intention to promptly accept the competence of the Committee against Enforced Disappearances to receive and consider cases of disappeared persons in Mexico, Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International's Americas Director, stated:

"The Mexican government's announcement is an important sign of its willingness to achieve justice, truth, and reparation in cases of enforced disappearance in the country. This issue, which for years has cast a shadow over human rights in Mexico, requires all available efforts and resources to find a solution. Amnesty International looks forward to the prompt implementation of this decision and will continue to monitor the situation of disappeared persons in the country, aware that it will only change with a strong commitment from all authorities."

Throughout the month of May, we are collecting cards to echo the calls for action by mothers of the disappeared in Mexico.

May 10 is Mother's Day in Mexico. Thousands of mothers marked the date by taking part in a huge Mother's Day March for Dignity (promoted in their poster, left), carrying the photos of sons and daughters who disappeared, never to be seen again. The mothers of the disappeared organize the march to make visible the massive dimensions of this heart-rending crisis and to call for action.

More than 40,000 people are now reported missing in Mexico. It's a staggering number that only continues to grow. Some people were abducted by criminal gangs. In other cases, public officials were involved.

Photo: Mother and son holding hands at the shelter for the Migrant Caravan in November 2018. 

Amnesty International Canada Secretary General Alex Neve is currently part of a delegation of senior Amnesty leadership who are visiting the Mexico/USA border to witness the impacts of US policy on migrants and asylum seekers. 

The polarizing and politicized discourse about refugees, migrant and border policy in the United States revolves around ugly chants and a long list of terms and agencies that are at once sinister and incomprehensible: #BuildTheWall, Migration Protection Protocols, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), Customs and Border Patrol, pushbacks and zero-tolerance.

But what is truly at stake and so lost in the swirling toxic debate are peoples’ hopes, lives and rights.

By Maha Asad, Amnesty Canada's National Youth Action and Advisory Council

Signing petitions and writing letters to protect human rights matters! Achieving our desired goals may take time but raising our voices helps create pressure. I saw that first hand during a visit to the Embassy of Mexico in Ottawa on November 20th.

We met with Ambassador Arturo Hernández Basave (below 3R) and Legal Affairs Secretary Alfonso Vera Sanchez (left) and handed over more than 35,000 messages of support, solidarity and calls for action on behalf of the 43 disappeared students of Ayotzinapa, as well as other victims of grave human rights abuses in Mexico.