Excessive use of force by the police in Oaxaca: Deaths, arbitrary arrests and detention, ill-treatment

Geneva, 1 December 2006.

The International Secretariat of OMCT requests your URGENT intervention in the following situation in Mexico.

Brief description of the situation:

The International Secretariat of OMCT has received with concern information from several reliable sources, among them the Human Rights Centre “Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez” (Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez - Centro Prodh), a member of the OMCT network, regarding the excessive use of force by the police against demonstrators in the City of Oaxaca, on 25 November 2006, resulting in the death of 5 persons (whose names have not been disclosed), 141 persons detained (among them 31 women), more than 25 disappeared, over 100 injured (twenty of them with firearms), hundreds of people poisoned by tear gas and internationally prohibited substances, as well as indiscriminate unlawful entries into homes of the community of Oaxaca.

According to the information received, on 25 November 2006, towards the end of a peaceful march organised by the Popular Assembly of Towns of Oaxaca (APPO) to request the resignation of the governor Ulysses Ruiz and the withdrawal of the Preventive Federal Police (PFP) from Oaxaca, reportedly several demonstrators were violently attacked by police officers and armed groups.

Among the injured persons, there were three journalists: photographer Amaury Guadarrama, from Cuartoscuro agency, who was brutally hit; Virgil Sánchez, correspondent of the daily newspaper Reforma of Mexico City, who was hit by a projectile of tear gas in the chest, and Abundio Núñez, from the economic newspaper El Financiero, later hospitalised due to his contusions.

According to the information received, on 27 November, around 5 a.m., the 141 people detained, whose names have not been disclosed yet and who were initially held in the prisons of Miahuatlán and Tlacolula, were suddenly taken into helicopters of the PFP. Hours later they landed in the Federal Middle Security Centre of Social Rehabilitation of San José del Rincón (Centro Federal de Readaptación Social de Seguridad Media), in Nayarit. Reportedly the transfer was carried out upon the request of the Office of the Secretary of Citizen’s Protection of Oaxaca, who alleged the supposed "high danger" of the arrested persons, as well as the absence of prison facilities "with sufficient security conditions" to accommodate them.

According to the lawyer Jesus Juárez Cortez, and based on a source from the El Rincón prison, the persons arrested in Oaxaca have been brought before three criminal courts located near the prison. However, none of them, until 30 November 2006, had been able to speak neither to their relatives nor to representatives of human rights organisations. Furthermore, an issue of particular concern is the personal integrity of the 34 detained women. When the PFP arrested them in Oaxaca, allegedly many of them had their clothes dismantled and, considering what happened to detained women during the events of San Salvador Atenco[1], it can be expected that the same type of sexual violence may have occurred. Hence the importance of ensuring their access to lawyers and family visits.

Brief reminder of the situation:

The OMCT has been informed that the great majority of arrests that took place during the various events since the beginning of the crisis in Oaxaca[2], occurred as razzias or were motivated by the aspect or the location of the victims. According to the information received, the persons arrested during all confrontations over the last months in Oaxaca have been victims of constant torture and ill-treatment in the facilities in which they remained in the custody of the Preventive Federal Police. The latter arguably made disproportionate, irrational, and excessive use of force, causing serious wounds to many of these persons. During the arrest and detention they have been subjected to blows, kicks, threats, punishment positions, dream deprivation and isolation.

Therefore, OMCT, considering the documented violations during the conflict in Oaxaca and taking into consideration these precedents, fears that, in the present case, during the arrest, the detention and the transfer to Nayarit, the persons detained have been and/or are being victims of blows, humiliations, threats and in some cases torture.

Moreover, the sudden transfer of the persons under arrest constitutes in itself a violation of the right to legal security, to personal liberty and to due process. Finally, the transfer of the arrested persons to Nayarit carries with itself the isolation of the persons under arrest. They were arrested on 25 November and on 30 November they still had not been permitted to contact their relatives or lawyers.

OMCT recalls that the United Nations Committee Against Torture, after the consideration of the Mexican State report during its November 2006 session, recommended to “take the necessary measures to avoid the use of all the forms of detention which can favour the practice of torture, to investigate the allegations of arbitrary detention and to sanction those responsible when there is an offence", "guarantee that force will only be used as a last resort and with strict respect of international norms of proportionality and necessity according to the existing threat" and " investigate all allegations of human rights violations perpetrated by public servants, especially those suffered by detained persons during these police operations, and bring to trial and adequately punish those responsible” (CAT/C/MEX/CO/4)[3].

Requested action:

Please write to the Mexican authorities to urge them to:

1. Take adequate measures to guarantee the safety and physical and psychological integrity of the victims, in particular the 141 persons arrested during the above-mentioned events and their family members, including by granting urgent, adequate and free medical care for every person who may require such care;
2. Ensure that the women detained during the above-mentioned police operation have access to the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Related to Acts of Violence against the Women, and for those who request it, ensure their immediate access to a forensic doctor to document possible acts of torture or ill-treatment;
3. Order the immediate release of all persons under arrest in the absence of valid legal charges and, if such charges exist, bring them before a competent, independent and impartial tribunal and guarantee their procedural rights at all times;
4. Order a thorough and impartial investigation into these events, in order to identify all those responsible, bring them to trial and apply the penal and/or administrative sanctions as provided by law;
5. Guarantee the respect of human rights and the fundamental freedoms throughout the country in accordance with national laws and international human rights standards, particularly the Convention Against the Torture and the recommendations issued by the Committee Against the Torture (CAT/C/MEX/CO/4).

Addresses:

• Permanent Mission of Mexico before the United Nations in Geneva, 16 Avenue du Budé, 1202 Ginebra, Suiza. Fax :+41.22.748.07.08 TEL.: +41.22.748.07.07 / E-mail: mission.mexico@ties.itu.int
• Ambassador Mr. Jorge Ciero, Diplomatic Mission of Mexico in Brussels, 94 avenue F.D. Rossevelt, 1050 Ixelles, Bélgica, Tel: + 32 2 629 07 11; Fax: + 32 2 644 08 19
• Doctor Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, President of Republic of Mexico, Colonia San Miguel Chapultepec, México D.F. FAX: +52.55.516.58.37, +5255.55.22.34.26, +52.55.50.93.34.14 / +52.55.52.77.23.76, +52.55.55.15.57.29. E-mail: radio@presidencia.gob.mx ; Email:sprivada@presidencia.gob.mx;
• Mr. Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo, Chief of the of the Presidence of the Republic Office.
• Mr. Francisco Javier Ramírez Acuña, Governor Secretary. Mr. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, General Procurer of the Republic, México, D.F., Tel: + 52.55.534.601.08 ; Fax: + 52.55.534.609.08 E-mail: ofproc@pgr.gob.mx
• Licenciado Genaro García Luna, Public Security Secretary. Tel: +52.55.52.42.81.00 Ext. 18989 FAX: +52.55.52.42.81.00 Ext. 18901
• General Guillermo Galván Galván, National Defence Secretary.
• Diputada Rebeca Godínez y Bravo, President of the Commission of Justice and Human Rights of the House of Deputies. México CP:15969, Tel: + 52.55.542.250.10
• Deputy Heliodoro Díaz Escárraga, President of the Directive Table of the House Of Deputies la Mesa Directiva de la Cámara de Diputados, México DF, Tel: + 52.55.562.813.00

Please also write to the embassies and representations of Mexico in your respective country.

***

Geneva, 1 December 2006.

Kindly inform us of any action undertaken quoting the code of this appeal in your reply.

[1] Cf. OMCT Urgent Appeal Case MEX 090506.1/090506.1.CC/MEX 180506VAW and the Report by CLADEM, Centro Prodh and OMCT, Violence against Women in Mexico: The San Salvador Atenco Case (Alternative Report to CAT – 37th session), November 2006.

[2] Cf. OMCT Urgent Appeals: Case MEX 150606.ESCR/ MEX 150606/ MEX 150606 CC, Case MEX 011106 (1) and Case MEX 011106(1).1 (follow-up issued on the 15 November 2006); and OMCT Press Release Mexico 011106.

[3] Non official translation.