Mexican police accused of shooting demonstrators point-blank in the head

World News Report: Mexican police shot unarmed protesters in the head as they were cowering on the ground, according to a hard-hitting report compiled by Human Rights Watch.

Demonstrators against the government were beaten with metal pipes, dragged to the ground and shot. A 20-year-old pregnant woman, Rosa Isela Orozco Sandoval, said she was punched, kicked and dragged across the ground. One witness told HRW that a policeman put a gun against his head, and only refrained from pulling the trigger when another policeman warned his colleague that locals were filming the confrontation.

Deals Flow to Contractor Tied to Mexican President

NYTimes: Armando García has filed lawsuits, joined protests and gotten arrested trying to stop a highway from slicing through his hilly backyard in a nature reserve.

But even with a court order on his side, bright green pines have been stripped away and tree stumps dot the hillside. Parts of protected forest have been slashed, exposing the path of a 20-mile highway to the new airport in Mexico City that is demolishing swaths of Mr. García’s indigenous community in its wake. Read more. 

Mexican Government Compensates Kin of Victims of Army Massacre

Latin American Herald Tribune: The Mexican government announced it will distribute more than 50 million pesos ($3.3 million) to the families of 22 civilians killed by soldiers in a June 2014 incident that has become known as the Tlatlaya massacre.

The Executive Commission on Assistance to Victims, or CEAV, said in a statement it has begun integral reparation actions as recommended by the independent National Human Rights Commission. Read more. 

Mexico Tortured Police For Confessions In 43 Students Case: Report

Huffington Post: An investigative report published Sunday by the Mexican magazine Proceso accuses Mexican authorities of beating and torturing municipal police officers in an effort to force confessions in the case of the missing 43 students whose disappearances have led to mass protests across the country.

Based on documents obtained from Mexico’s office of the attorney general and interviews with the police officers’ families, the article, by journalists Anabel Hernández and Steve Fisher, casts doubts on the state's official explanation for what happened to the missing students, and suggests that the use of torture may have compromised the prosecution. Read more. 

Judge orders release of two women involved in the case Tlatlaya

CNN México (Translation Americas Program):

 

© Photo: provided no incriminating MP for conclusions detained in an operation in the This ... Photo: MP presented no incriminating for conclusions detained in an operation in the State of Mexico where 22 people died

A judge ordered Monday the immediate release of two women who were arrested last June 30 in Tlatlaya, State of Mexico, during a supposed operation  of the federal authorities which killed 22 people, stated a bulletin from the Council of the Federal Judiciary (CJF).

The women, held at the Federal Women's Social Rehabilitation Center in Tepic, Nayarit, were charged with collection of firearms and possession of firearm cartridges for the exclusive use of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Army unit in Mexico killings has past controversy

AP: An army officer and seven soldiers who face disciplinary action for their participation in the killing of 22 people in rural southern Mexico belong to an army battalion with a history of incidents.

The Mexican Defense Department said the eight were involved in the June 30 incident in San Pedro Limon, an encounter that the military initially reported as a shootout but that a witness has described as a massacre. Read more, 

The State of Mexico, the other Ciudad Juarez

El País - Vanguardia 
July 21, 2013
Original Americas Program Translation

Mexico – You don’t always learn from your mistakes. A decade ago, Mexico was terrorized with the almost daily appearance of female corpses in Ciudad Juarez.

At that time, the Mexican state was not able to guarantee a woman's right to life,  stated the American Court of Human Rights in 2009.

And now, 20 years after the beginning of femicide that has left more than 800 dead in the border city began, Mexico faces a new crisis and it is not Ciudad Juarez in the 90s, but the State of Mexico in 2013.

Civil associations argue that in 2011 and 2012, 563 women were killed in the State of Mexico for the sole reason of being a woman.

This last week is a clear example of the tragedy: the bodies of five young women, all with signs of brutal violence, have appeared in the Valle de Chalco, a town of about 350,000 inhabitants located precisely in the State of Mexico.

A gender violence alert mechanism that was created five years ago has now become a dumb bell. Neither these five dead nor the 563 from the last two years have convinced the National System to Prevent, Treat, Punish and Eradicate Violence to activate it.

This Friday they again refused to implement an alert, which so far remains unused even though the number of deaths in the country increased by 68% between 2007 and 2009, according to UN Women. The figure, for example, tripled in the State of Baja California.

Femicide increases in the State of Mexico and other states; Amnesty calls for gender alert but the PRI resists

By Sin Embargo 
Published July 17, 2013
Original Americas Program Translation 

Mexico City, July 17 (Sin Embargo). - Just earlier this month, deputies and senators of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) prevented the First Permanent Commission from issuing  an appeal to the Government of the State of Mexico to stop resisting and implement a "gender alert" in the state.

Yesterday, Amnesty International drew attention to this request and asked to include other states like Oaxaca, Guanajuato, and Nuevo Leon. According to the organization, the Federal Government has ignored multiple requests that have been made to make the warning statement, due to the "alarming levels of violence against women."

Daniel Zapico, AI representative in Mexico, said that the refusal of the authorities seemed like an "attempt to minimize a situation that has claimed epidemic dimension."

According to the results of the National Study on Sources, Origins and Factors that produce and reproduce the Violence Against Women, the nine states that show an increasing trend of female homicides are Chiapas, Chihuahua, Mexico City, Durango, Guerrero, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Sinaloa and Sonora.

Drug war rages on the edge of Mexico City

Global Post
By Dudley Althaus
January 26, 2013

MEXICO CITY, Mexico — For all the murderous mayhem that has haunted Mexico in recent years, its capital city has remained essentially untouched.

Large cities like Monterrey and Ciudad Juarez have become synonymous with brutal drug war killings, while Mexico City's nearly 9 million residents have been largely spared.

But recent carnage in Mexico state, enveloping the capital like a folded tortilla, has many worried that's about to change.

Gangland slaughter on the fringes of Mexico's capital has claimed some 60 lives in 10 days, mocking President Enrique Pena Nieto's promise to reduce violence with better local law enforcement.

In response, federal and state officials have beefed up army patrols in the state's largest cities, hard on the capital's borders — and people are taking note.  Read more.

Seeking justice for Mexico state's female victims

Los Angeles Times: Hundreds of women and girls are killed every year in Mexico state, known as Edomex. One woman who lost her daughter, 14, puts her life at risk to press her case.

By Tracy Wilkinson. ECATEPEC, Mexico — At 14, Jessica Lucero had already lived a hard life. A stint in rehab, dropping out of school, making her way, day in, day out, in a terribly violent, desperately poor neighborhood.

But things were looking up. She had stayed clean and was planning to resume studies. She dreamed of becoming a forensic pathologist.

Then, in June, Jessica was raped by a man she later identified as a notorious neighbor, a known drug pusher. Jessica's reaction was to do something that few people twice her age have ever dared. She went to the authorities and denounced the crime.

Not 30 days later, she was killed, beaten to death with a small boulder. The force of the blow was so strong that her skull left a dint in the ground that would remain for days. Read more.

Graphic interview of alleged rapists angers Mexico

AP: Adriana Gomez Licon. The families of women and girls sexually assaulted on a church camp-out near Mexico City expressed anger Thursday after television stations broadcast a video of police posing highly graphic questions to suspects arrested in the crime.

Christian Youth Movement spokeswoman Aletia Santoscoy asked the media to stop playing the interrogation because it was affecting the girls' emotional recovery. Read more.

In Mexico state, violence against women has surged

latimes.com: A brutal attack on a church group points to the growing dangers in the state, which until last fall was governed by Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico's next president.

MEXICO CITY — For hours, gunmen held captive a church group camping on a spiritual retreat.
They raped girls and beat boys. They stole their cellphones. Finally the gunmen left; the youths wrapped themselves in blankets and walked five miles to find help.

The attack late last week outside Mexico City illustrates the mounting dangers — especially violence targeting women — in the Mexican state that until last year was governed by the man who will be the nation's next president.

The state of Mexico, which surrounds Mexico City on three sides, has seen an "alarming" surge in the number of murders and rapes of women, according to several human rights organizations. Much of that increase occurred during the governorship of Enrique Peña Nieto, whose six-year term ended last fall before he went on to win this month's presidential election. Read more.

Gang of gunmen go on rape, robbery, beating rampage at church youth camp-out near Mexico City

AP: TOLUCA, Mexico — A gang of about a dozen armed people stormed into a church youth camp-out near Mexico City and went on an hours-long rampage of beatings, robberies and rape, authorities said Saturday.

Seven girls were raped during the Friday attack and several campers were beaten, according to the state prosecutors office in Mexico State, which surrounds the Mexican capital. Read more.

Denied the Right to Vote in Mexico’s Presidential Election

My husband and I moved away from our voting district in Mexico State in large part due to increasing violence. In May 2011, I suffered a botched kidnapping attempt in broad daylight. In October 2011, we were enjoying a drink in a quiet, well-lit bar when municipal police allegedly working for the La Familia criminal organization burst in, locked down the bar, and held us all at gunpoint while they pressured the owner to pay his quota to La Familia. He was the last bar owner in town who refused to pay criminals for the right to operate his business. After about a half-hour of lockdown, we left the bar unscathed. Bar patrons in the next town over, however, were less fortunate. Three days after our ordeal, gunmen allegedly working for La Familia opened fire in a bar that refused to pay its quota, shooting five patrons, including two women.

By March 2012, bodies hanging from bridges or executed and dumped in mass graves or in front of public events were becoming relatively commonplace in the farming community where we lived. So we moved.

After settling in to our new home in a new state, my husband and I debated whether or not to vote in the presidential elections. We’d never voted, nor had any member of our family for that matter. Our family was disillusioned with the electoral process, and the “leftist” candidate, Andres Manuel López Obrador, had promised United States Vice-President Joe Biden that he would continue the drug war if he were elected president. Our family had always preferred grassroots organizing to participation in the electoral process.

But this election was different. My husband and I spent two years in Mexico State under the rule of Enrique Peña Nieto, and we watched as his security policies sent our quiet, close-knit town into a tailspin. Our friends and family were tortured in Atenco in 2006 during a violent police operation ordered by Peña Nieto. No government officials have been punished for the unthinkable things they did to our family, even though we still have to live with the emotional and physical consequences of the torture. On the contrary, Peña Nieto was rewarded for his deeds when his party named him their presidential candidate.

The #YoSoy132 student movement against Peña Nieto’s candidacy convinced us that voting against the man who had done us so much harm was both noble and necessary. We saw ourselves reflected in that movement. The students didn’t belong to a political party. They weren’t faithful followers of a candidate that they felt would single-handedly change Mexico for the better. They simply knew that Enrique Peña Nieto could not become the president of Mexico, and we knew that, too. So we decided to vote for Andres Manuel López Obrador.

Mexican law prohibits any changes to voter registration in the six months prior to an election, which meant that my husband was unable to change his voting district to our new home in the state of Oaxaca. On Election Day, he left early to vote at one of the Special Voting Booths set up for citizens who are voting outside of their districts.

When he arrived at the polling station, the line for those waiting to vote stretched down four city blocks. Because he had other obligations that day, he decided to return in the afternoon. He had until 6pm to vote. When he returned hours later, the line was much shorter, but then he found out why: earlier in the day, election officials handed out numbers to those waiting in line: 750 numbers, one for each ballot the Special Voting Booth received for citizens voting outside of their districts. The rest of those waiting in line were told to go home or find another Special Voting Booth--this voting booth had no more ballots.

My husband visited another three polling stations that were equipped with Special Voting Booths, and none had enough ballots for the citizens who wanted to vote. Nancy Davies, a Mexican citizen and founding member of the Oaxaca Study Action Group, reports that by 3:30 pm, signs were up in Oaxaca’s town square stating that none of the area’s six Special Voting Booths had ballots, news that she says nearly provoked a riot downtown.

As the 6 pm deadline closed in, those who did receive numbers were becoming anxious. One woman at the back of the line said that she had been waiting in line since 11am. An elderly gentleman who was just casting his vote at 6:30 said that he took his place in line at 8. He was number 326. As they waited all day in the burning sun then pouring rain, they watched people with numbers give up and go home.

Voters began to complain about the long waits to the election officials in charge of their polling stations. “There’s so few of us here. We should have voted already! How is it that you’re taking so long to let us vote?” complained one man to an election official, who told him to file a formal complaint with the Federal Elections Institute (IFE). A man who was unable to cast his vote commented that he believed election officials were intentionally delaying the voting process so that potential voters would give up and go home.

My husband and I were shocked and dismayed that he was unable to vote because the government had provided the Special Voting Booths with so few ballots. Those who are forced to vote in the Special Voting Booths instead of their designated polling stations are those who have been harmed the most by the federal government’s policies. They are Mexico’s internal refugees, displaced by the violence and insecurity that the current president unleashed when he deployed the military in the war on drugs. They are the unemployed who were forced to travel to look for work because there was none at home, thanks to the president’s disastrous economic policies. They know better than anyone else what is wrong with the federal government’s policies because they have lived it in flesh and blood, yet on July 1 they were denied their constitutional right to vote for the next president. 

Kristin Bricker, in Oaxaca.

Mexico election diary: Inside the Estado de México

The Economist: ONE of the most frequently heard comments about Enrique Peña Nieto, the front-runner in Mexico’s presidential race, is that in spite of his fame, no one really knows much about the man beneath the carefully styled quiff. I’m not sure that’s true. Last year Mr Peña finished a six-year term in charge of the biggest state in Mexico. The Estado de México, or Mexico state, has a population of 15m, making it bigger than Guatemala and not far off the size of Chile. His time in charge there ought to offer plenty of clues about how he would manage the country if he wins July 1st’s election.

Yesterday I went to Mexico state to get an idea of whether Mr Peña had made a decent job of running the place. We’ll have a write-up in the print edition later, but in the meantime I recommend a good table in this month’s Nexos magazine, which functions as a kind of scorecard for Mr Peña’s time in office between 2005 and 2011. Alongside it is a similar one for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mr Peña’s closest rival, who was the mayor of Mexico City between 2000 and 2006. Read more.

Drug War: Prosecutor says 5 police officers shot dead outside Mexico City tried to extort suspects

Note: this prosecutor´s statement is based on the statements of supposed members of a drug cartel as to why they called in an attack on the police.

AP/Washington Post: "Mexican authorities say five police officers fatally shot near Mexico City after stopping a car were trying to extort money when they were attacked.

Mexico State prosecutor Alfredo Castillo says the officers from the town of Ixtapaluca (Ees-tah-pah-lu-ca) asked the four La Familia Michoacana cartel members in the vehicle for 6,000 pesos (about $460) to let them go." read more

Drug War Bloodshed: 5 Police Officers Killed in Mexico

AP/NYTimes.com: "Officials said that five police officers had been fatally shot after they stopped a vehicle in a town outside Mexico City. A prosecutor, Alfredo Castillo Cervantes of Mexico State, said the police officers from the town of Ixtapaluca had stopped the vehicle on Monday when a taxi and a van pulled up and a group of attackers opened fire with high-powered weapons." read more