May 14, 2018

PBI Mexico continues to raise concern about a January 2018 operation involving local security forces, in which three people were killed and thirty subjected to mass arrest. On January 7, in Conception, Guerrero, Mexican security forces carried out extrajudicial executions, acts of torture, and arbitrary detentions. The operation took place after a clash between members of the Community Police and armed civilians. Eight people were killed in that clash. The Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, which PBI accompanies, is the legal representative for those detained during the mass arrest. Tlachinollan reports that members of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the la Parota Dam were arrested as part of a criminalization strategy, targeted for opposing the hydroelectric project known as La Parota. Tlachinollan's lawyers have been the target of threats and defamation as they have carried out their defense of those detained. Twenty-five people continue to be detained at Las Cruces prison in Acapulco, including human rights defender Marco Antonio Suástegui. Detainees lack access to medical care and medicines and are almost completely isolated. More information is available here.

PBI Mexico is also concerned about the armed attack in April against members of the People´s Assembly of San Dionisio del Mar, on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and the potential increased risk human rights defenders will face as the Mexican General Elections, scheduled for July 1, approach. In the attack, five people were shot and injured after the community assembly decided against a proposed wind park. PBI Mexico, which accompanies four organizations that are defending land and environmental rights, has published a report on environmental defenders, available here.