The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) states in its annual report that the “democratic security” policy of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe could have negative implications for human rights in the conflicted South American country. The report said the… Read moreColombia: UN blasts Uribe’s “democratic security” program
Colombian officials announced they will consider seeking the extradition of senior executives of Chiquita Brands International after the company pleaded guilty in US federal court to making payments to paramilitary groups. Chiquita, one of the world’s top banana producers, agreed… Read moreColombia: Chiquita to pay in para scandal
The annual US State Department report on global human rights, released March 6, notes improvements in the rghts climate in Mexico but says a “culture of impunity and corruption” persists. (La Jornada, March 7) Source archived at Chiapas95. See our… Read moreState Department rights report blasts Mexico
Indigenous peoples have no future under the neoliberal system, because it doesn’t respect their traditional self-government (usos y costumbres) and seeks to eliminate their ethnic identity, said the Bishop Emeritus of San Cristobal de Las Casas, Samuel Ruiz Garcia, who… Read moreMexico’s Bishop Ruiz: no future for indigenous under neoliberalism
Two peasant ecologists, Don Marcos Paz and Bulmaro Cuiriz, adherents of the Zapatista “Other Campaign” and the local Unión de Comuneros Emiliano Zapata (UCEZ), were arrested March 9 in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, on what the UCEZ says are false charges of… Read moreMichoacan: peasant ecologists arrested
On March 14, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) handed a report to the Senate demanding that killings and other rights abuses in the conflicted southern state of Oaxaca over the past months be punished. “There were threats, persecution, physical… Read moreOaxaca: rights commission blasts government
Chiapas state authorities have declared a “Huitepec-Alcanfores Natural Protected Area” in exactly the location where a “Zapatista Communitarian Ecological Reserve” had been declared weeks earlier. The Zapatistas say the Huitepec area, just outside the highland city of San Cristobal de… Read moreZapatista peace camps threatened
The leader of the Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights (OPDDIC), Pedro Chulin Jimenez, and at least 25 of his militants were arrested by state authorities in Chiapas, Mexico, March 8 following reports of attacks on three… Read moreChiapas: paramilitaries threaten journalists
Some 500 Mexican army troops and Federal Preventative Police took over the Public Security Secretariat of southern Tabasco state March 17, and arrested three high-ranking police commanders. The three officials, summarily fired upon their arrests, are part of a clique… Read moreMexican federales raid Tabasco police
From the American Civil Liberties Union, March 15: DENVER – The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a complaint against three White House staffers for illegally ejecting Denver residents from a taxpayer-funded town hall with President Bush, even though they… Read more“Denver Three” sue White House staff
One of 15 immigrants arrested in March 2002 in connection with a supposed plot to attack the US Embassy in Rome with chemical agents has been awarded $133,000 for wrongful detention. Tunisian-born Abdelmoname Ben Khalifa Mansour, initially charged with being… Read moreItaly pays in bogus terror bust
Iran’s representative to UNESCO, Mohammad-Reza Dehshiri, issued a protest in a letter to the UN cultural organizaiton’s director general against the Warner Brothers blockbuster 300, calling it an insult to Iranian culture. Dehshiri called on UNESCO to bring the issue… Read moreIran protests to UN over “300”
