By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jul 8, 2011 (IPS) – Reports of extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, kidnappings and assaults are some of the heavy baggage that U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay is taking home from Mexico.
In late June, the CDHM closed down its Mexican Northern Border Initiative due to threats and intimidation. The Initiative ran several shelters in border areas, providing assistance to Central American migrants attempting to reach the United States and to Mexicans deported from that country.
Since 2005, 27 activists have been killed, according to the governmental National Human Rights Commission (CNDH)
So far this year there have been at least seven cases of assault on migrant rights activists, compared to two cases between October 2009 and October 2010, according to human rights groups.
Since 2000, 73 reporters have been killed, and 12 are still missing, according to the CNDH – making Mexico the most dangerous country in Latin America for journalists.
“A large number of attacks committed by agents of the state have not been investigated, because there is complete impunity,” Juan Gutiérrez, director of the non-governmental Mexican Commission for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH), told IPS. The activist met this week with Pillay, a South African judge who was appointed U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in July 2008.
After taking office in December 2006, Calderón dispatched military troops to fight the powerful drug cartels disputing the smuggling routes to the lucrative U.S. market. Since he declared his “war on drugs”, more than 40,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence, according to government figures.
The CNDH has received 5,055 complaints against the defence ministry for abuses committed since 2006.
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