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In a series of preliminary opinions, an international tribunal of conscience has condemned massive violations of human rights in Mexico. Now wrapping up a four-year process of evidence gathering,  members of  the Mexican chapter of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) have found grave threats to  the environment, food sovereignty, indigenous autonomy, and  democratic rights of self-expression and organization of the…

Ahead of the EU-Mexico Human Rights Dialogue, which took place in Brussels on the 18th of March, Protection International together with PBI (Peace Brigades International), CIFCA (Iniciativa de Copenhague para Centroamérica y México) and Front Line Defenders submitted a joint briefing, reporting that HRDs in Mexico continue to suffer attacks, threats, harassment and murders. The four signatory organizations have identified…

March has been prodigal in social resistance events against open-pit mining and other “megaprojects”. They are also a form of rejecting extractive policies in general, and in many cases they represent the effort to begin building another way of life that is less commercialized and more human. The first day of the month, in the municipality of San Luis Bentrán,…

In October of last year, Irma Lopez Aurelio arrived at a state health clinic in Oaxaca, Mexico, in labor with her third child. The doctors at the clinic told her to come back, that her labor was not advanced enough and no doctor was available to help her. Irma, who is Indigenous, spoke little Spanish and was unable to communicate how advanced her labor…

In the early months of 2012, two members of the Coordinator of the United Peoples of Ocotlán Valley—Bernardo Vázquez Sánchez and Bernardo Méndez Vázquez—were murdered after participating in seven year of opposition to the presence of the Cuzcatlán-Fortuna Silver Mines Company. Concerned about the growth in the conflict, different civil society organizations held a civilian observation and human rights mission…

On 15 February, Eva Lucero Rivero Ortiz, a human-rights defender and spokesperson for the Democratic Civic Union of Neighborhoods Colonies and Communities (UCIDEBACC), received two death-threats to her cell phone after having participated in a meeting with Oaxaca state officials. The previous day, other members of UCIDEBACC, María Dolores Merino Ortiz, Reina Clavel Tapia, Cinthia Narciso Bernal, and a minor,…