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| James Cavallaro, President of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights |
As part of the 157th session IAHCR hearings, commissioners, headed by James Cavallaro*, the president of this organ of the OAS, joined in the denunciation of the crisis that exists in Mexico regarding human rights, freedom of expression, impunity and lack of transparency.
In the first of four hearings on cases in Mexico, one dedicated to the "General Situation of Human Rights," requested by the Mexican State, examples were presented of systematic human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions, torture, corruption, abuse of authority, displacement of people by violence, harassment, intimidation and murder of journalists, as well as various cases of forced disappearance of thousands of adults and children in almost all the national territory.
Miguel Ruiz Cabañas, Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights of the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs, who led the Mexican government delegation, almost automatically rejected any accusation and remarks concerning violation of human rights in Mexico. While acknowledging that there are human rights violations in the country, he rejected flatly that "there is a crisis," as established by the Commission in its report on Mexico released in February.
For example, in response to the question of the indiscriminate use of lethal force by the armed forces under the shelter of the militarized fight against drug trafficking, Ruiz Cabañas said that "in Mexico the use of military force is carried out under international standards." In defense of what was said about abuses by Mexican soldiers and marines, the Undersecretary justified:
"The allegations about violations of human rights allegedly committed by government forces are investigated. All cases are in civilian courts and, if there are punishments, they are applied."Nancy López, who spoke on behalf of the Mexican Committee for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights, said that in the country
"there exists and we are going through a generalized situation of violation of human rights with systematic enforced disappearances, structural impunity", and she added, "we are tired of impunity led by the government" for such crimes.Commissioner Enrique Gil Botero said that, while acknowledging that progress has been made since 2011 on human rights in Mexico, there is something incomprehensible:
"That the Mexican government wants to deny that there is a serious human rights situation ... it seems that is a beginning of schizophrenia."Cavallaro also complained to the government of Enrique Peña Nieto that Mexico is conducting a smear campaign against the Commission and the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE) that is cooperating with the PGR [Attorney General's Office] in investigating the Ayotzinapa case, and against Emilio Álvarez Icaza Longoría, executive secretary of the Commission.
Ruiz Cabañas said the government of Mexico is not behind the smear campaigns and noted that the PGR had dismissed the criminal complaint filed by "a private party" against Álvarez Icaza Longoria.
In three of the four hearings before the Commission, specific issues were addressed: rights of persons deprived of liberty and privatization of the prison system; disappearance of children and adolescents, and access to information and indirect restrictions to freedom of expression.
In the last of the four, the most crowded, five groups from civil society and Carmen Aristegui denounced that in Mexico the government uses government advertising to editorially control the media, censor or [cause] journalists to self-censor, that access to information is very limited, and there is no accountability mechanism for asset declarations by public officials.
They also charged that access to licenses for community media is denied, and stations cannot begin working because the laws have restricted them such that without government advertising they simply cannot function or transmit anything.
In the last hearing, journalist Carmen Aristegui began her three-minute speech like this:
"There was once a White House in a luxurious neighborhood in the possession of the President of the Republic, and the story ended in censorship."Referring to her dismissal, in March 2014, by MVS, which was broadcasting her daily morning radio program, Aristegui said she could not, given the time she was granted to speak, give the details of her case, so she gave the members of the IACHR a "Medellín Declaration" which sets out her dismissal and that of her colleagues on the radio program.
The commissioners and Edison Lanza, Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression at the IACHR, addressed a series of questions to the Mexican government on the issue of freedom of expression, to which Ruiz Cabañas promised to respond in writing.
Lanza also requested that the Peña Nieto government allow him and the Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the UN to visit Mexico to look at the issue of the lack of transparency, harassment of the press and murder of journalists. He informed the Commission that next week his formal request for the visit will be delivered in writing to the Mexican government. Ruiz Cabañas told the press that the rapporteurs' visit will not take place during the first half of 2016, and that the possibility of it being scheduled in September is being studied. Spanish original
*James L. Cavallaro is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and Founding Director of both the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford and the Stanford Human Rights Center. Previously, he was a Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Executive Director of the Human Rights Program at Harvard.