Mexico Military Responds to Human Rights Scandals with Helmet Cameras

InSight Crime: Mexico's military is to introduce body cameras for soldiers as part of efforts to rebuild a human rights record tarnished by recent scandals, but experiences elsewhere suggest such measures alone will not be enough to end abuse and impunity.

Mexico's National Defense Secretary (Sedena) has announced a plan to install 2,245 video cameras on the helmets of military personnel, reported Milenio. The initiative stems from recommendations made by the National Human Rights Commission (CDNH) in response to the Tlatlaya massacre in 2014, in which 22 people were allegedly executed by military officers. Read more.

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.

Drug Tunnels Along the U.S.-Mexico Border: High Costs, High Rewards

Newsweek: More than 80 tunnels have been discovered between Mexico and the United States since 2006, most recently this past Thursday after a six-month investigation by the U.S. government resulted in a large smuggling tunnel being uncovered, as well as 22 arrests and the recovery of 12 tons of marijuana.

The tunnel, about 32 feet underground, runs about 2,880 feet, between the Otay Center Warehouse in San Diego and another warehouse in Tijuana. In a statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Finn said the tunnel is believed to have a railroad system, lighting and electricity throughout.

Mexican AG's office apologizes to parents for 12-year-old migrant's death

EFE: The Mexican Attorney General’s Office publicly apologized to an Ecuadorian couple for the March 2014 death of their 12-year-old daughter at a children’s shelter in the northern state of Chihuahua.

The deputy attorney general for human rights, crime prevention and community services, Eber Omar Betanzos Torres, “addressed some words to the parents,” who live in the United States, at the Consulate General of Ecuador in New York, the AG’s office said in a statement Tuesday.

Six people arrested in Mexico over escape of Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman

The Guardian: Six people believed responsible for the escape from prison of drug baron Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, including his brother-in-law and the suspected mastermind of the jail break, have been arrested, Mexican authorities have said.

Attorney general Arely Gomez said the alleged mastermind of the operation is a member of Guzman’s legal team who had access to the prison near Mexico City from which Guzman escaped via a tunnel in July. Read more.

A message to Mexico on abuses

mySA: The United States, in the interest of bilateral harmony, has been looking the other way too long when it comes to Mexico’s human rights abuses. That the State Department found it could do so no longer says something about our southern neighbor’s continuing slide into that morass under the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto.

The U.S. is withholding only a fraction — $5 million — of the $195 million in Merida Initiative funding to aid in the fight against vicious drug cartels. This is meant to send a message that the United States will no longer take Mexico’s assurances on human rights at face value. Read more.

Files for lawsuit against CIA stolen in ‘suspicious’ break-in at UW

Seattle Times: University of Washington police are investigating a break-in at the offices of the director of the school’s Center for Human Rights after a computer and hard drive containing sensitive information about a recent lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency were stolen.

The center says that the office of Angelina Godoy was burglarized sometime between Thursday and Sunday. Godoy reported that the hard drive contained “about 90 percent of the information” relating to research in El Salvador that is the foundation of a freedom-of-information lawsuit the center filed Oct. 2 against the CIA. Read more.