The Mexican senate has passed a package of reforms to Article 139 of the Federal Penal Code modeled on anti-terrorist legislation in the United States—above the objections of the left-opposition PRD, PT and Convergence, whose legislators assailed the changes as… Read moreMexican senate passes anti-terror package
Gov. Ulises Ruiz of Oaxaca has called upon Mexican military authorities to investigate a new guerilla group which has announced its existence the in conflicted southern state. In a message posted to the website of the Spain-based Documentation Center for… Read moreOaxaca: new guerilla group under investigation
A criminal complaint has been filed in the Mexican border city of Matamoros against Luz MarĂa González Armenta, leader of Defense and Promotion of Human Rights-Emiliano Zapata (DEPRODHEZAC), weeks after she was detained at a political protest. González was arrested… Read moreCriminal complaint filed against Matamoros rights defender
Rodolfo Chávez Galindo, a campesino leader active in the opposition to La Parota hydro-electric complex, was arrested by state police April 21 in the conflicted southern Mexican state of Guerrero, charged with the illegal detention of an engineer from the… Read moreGuerrero: hydro-dam opponent arrested
From Amnesty International, April 19: Political activist David Venegas was arbitrarily detained by state police in central Oaxaca City on 13 April, and reportedly tortured. He has been charged with serious criminal offences, on the basis of evidence which appears… Read moreOaxaca: Amnesty International alert for arrested activists
The Popular People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) has joined with members of the Union of Mexican Jurists in a “Popular Court” to judge the repression and rights violations in southern Mexico’s Oaxaca state over the last year of social conflict…. Read more“Popular Court” judges Oaxaca repression
The Other Campaign of Jovel—local chapter of the Zapatista civil initiative in the Chiapas highland city of San Cristobal de Las Casas—has turned over to the agrarian authorities in the state capital, Tuxtla GutiĂ©rrez, a critical analysis of land conflicts… Read moreChiapas: agrarian authorities accused in land conflicts
Representantives of dozens of ejidos (agricultural collectives) in the northern zone of Mexico’s Chiapas state issued a statement denouncing the approval of illegal sales of collective lands. The protesters, mostly Chol Maya from the municipalities of Tila and Salto de… Read moreChiapas: campesinos protest illegal land sales
The president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), FlorentĂn MenĂ©ndez, was in Mexico April 11 to meet with officials from the federal Government Secretariat. MenĂ©ndez urged officials to seek a solution to the ongoing teachers’ strike in the… Read moreAPPO: Oaxaca struggle not over
Mexico, Colombia and seven Central American nations held a 24-hour summit April 10 in Campeche, issuing a nine-point plan for revitalizing the regional development alliance known as the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP). Joining Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon were the presidents of… Read moreMexico: Campeche PPP summit draws protests
Amado RamĂrez Dillane, 50, Acapulco-based correspondent for Mexico’s Televisa network and host of the daily news program “Al Tanto” on local Radiorama, was shot to death near the city’s main square April 6. He had apparently just left Radiorama’s studio… Read moreMexico: journalist gunned down in Acapulco
Mexico’s Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat) announced that six more setlements—some which have been established for 70 years—have been slated for relocation from the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in the lowland rainforest of Chiapas, the Lacandon Selva. The named… Read moreChiapas: government marks more settlements for eviction from Selva
