You can find numerous reports on the Oaxaca human rights situation via google by simply entering the phrase Oaxaca human rights. Here are a few useful refrences from that search:
Useful links on Oaxaca human rights abuses (updated Dec. 27, 2006)
http://web.amnesty.org/web/web.nsf/print/296E93964FB3414D8025724A003B9F02
Amnesty International report on Oaxaca detentions after Nov. 25 crackdown by federal police.
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/mex-201206-action-eng
Amnesty International brief report on Oaxaca
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/20/1443211#transcript
broadcast from Oaxaca regarding recent abuses by police and continuing peaceful protests
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20428&Cr=human&Cr1=rights
United Nations report on abuses in Oaxaca
info@rightsaction.org
Look for December 26, 2006 report on Oaxaca and what you can do to help
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
After a rather intense week of human rights investigation in Oaxaca, Mexico, into alleged human rights abuses by state and federal police, I can share the following brief summary of findings which I will detail in later postings.
1. There have been many serious abuses of human rights in the state of Oaxaca at the hands of both federal and state police, mostly in the second half of 2006.
2. These are not simply allegations: as part of a human rights delegation, I saw several individuals who still bore physical marks of beatings, including three leaders of a popular resistance movement who had been detained briefly and beaten by police and who then, courageously, held an outdoor, late evening press conference which I attended.
3. Further, live testimonies by numerous victims of police repression gave accounts whose details can be deemed credible and who have nothing to gain by exaggerating events.
4. From the view of the federal and state government, mass marches, occupations of public spaces, and violence in the form of molotov cocktails, and physical resistance to arrest, are deemed as requiring a strong response. But much of the abuse by police has occurred not in the moment of apprehension but after individuals were apprehended and unable to offer further resistance.
5. Such abuses, according to victims interviewed, include beatings, pulling people by their hair, throwing people into police vehicles and sitting on them, threatening detainees with death or further abuse, and denial of legal representation or respect for habeus corpus.
6. Impunity. Though our delegation did not have access to full government records on what, if any action the government, either federal or state, has taken to punish police who have violated legal rights of citizens, the delegation did meet with the head of an office under the governor of the state of Oaxaca. To date, that office has opened files on two cases but no conclusions have been reached. A state human rights official would acknowledge only that some abuses of human rights have "probably" taken place in recent months. A national human rights commission has of now made no findings but apparently is making some investigations
7. Political context. The Governor is from the PRI party, as was his predecessor. But in recent elections for the federal Congress, PRI lost all but 2 seats contested.
8. A mass march held Dec. 22 ended peacefully in downtown Oaxaca a few blocks from the main plaza which was still blocked to protestors by steel barriers and ranks of riot police.
More details later.
Photos and links to additional, related information will also be posted.
You are invited to share your comments.
1. There have been many serious abuses of human rights in the state of Oaxaca at the hands of both federal and state police, mostly in the second half of 2006.
2. These are not simply allegations: as part of a human rights delegation, I saw several individuals who still bore physical marks of beatings, including three leaders of a popular resistance movement who had been detained briefly and beaten by police and who then, courageously, held an outdoor, late evening press conference which I attended.
3. Further, live testimonies by numerous victims of police repression gave accounts whose details can be deemed credible and who have nothing to gain by exaggerating events.
4. From the view of the federal and state government, mass marches, occupations of public spaces, and violence in the form of molotov cocktails, and physical resistance to arrest, are deemed as requiring a strong response. But much of the abuse by police has occurred not in the moment of apprehension but after individuals were apprehended and unable to offer further resistance.
5. Such abuses, according to victims interviewed, include beatings, pulling people by their hair, throwing people into police vehicles and sitting on them, threatening detainees with death or further abuse, and denial of legal representation or respect for habeus corpus.
6. Impunity. Though our delegation did not have access to full government records on what, if any action the government, either federal or state, has taken to punish police who have violated legal rights of citizens, the delegation did meet with the head of an office under the governor of the state of Oaxaca. To date, that office has opened files on two cases but no conclusions have been reached. A state human rights official would acknowledge only that some abuses of human rights have "probably" taken place in recent months. A national human rights commission has of now made no findings but apparently is making some investigations
7. Political context. The Governor is from the PRI party, as was his predecessor. But in recent elections for the federal Congress, PRI lost all but 2 seats contested.
8. A mass march held Dec. 22 ended peacefully in downtown Oaxaca a few blocks from the main plaza which was still blocked to protestors by steel barriers and ranks of riot police.
More details later.
Photos and links to additional, related information will also be posted.
You are invited to share your comments.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Oaxaca, Mexico: human rights issues
As an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Southern Mississippi, I tell my students in American Government 101 that when you are not sure how to respond to apparent abuses of human rights or civil liberties, at least you can go stand by the people who have been abused. With that in mind, my wife, Betty Press, a photographer, and I are heading to Oaxaca, Mexico to join an international human rights delegation that will attempt to learn more about the series of public protests and state responses to them.
News accounts detail months of protests by teachers and others as well as state concern for law and order. Recent accounts of police firing live bullets on protestors, killing a number of protestors plus an American journalist covering the events, plus accounts of mass arrests and jailings and some cases of torture, are enough to make me hope that the presence of this and several other international delegations will somehow have a calming effect, or perhaps a restraining effect, that will lessen violence. That is a hope.
I welcome comments on the events there as well as on the trip and its aim.
News accounts detail months of protests by teachers and others as well as state concern for law and order. Recent accounts of police firing live bullets on protestors, killing a number of protestors plus an American journalist covering the events, plus accounts of mass arrests and jailings and some cases of torture, are enough to make me hope that the presence of this and several other international delegations will somehow have a calming effect, or perhaps a restraining effect, that will lessen violence. That is a hope.
I welcome comments on the events there as well as on the trip and its aim.
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