Mexico is experiencing a human rights crisis according to Amnesty International

“We can confirm that Mexico continues to face a serious human rights crisis,” Amnesty International said after the presentation of its annual report, which was published on March 29.

This document, which highlights the role of COVID-19 at the global level, also summarizes the findings on Human Rights in a particular way. In the case of Mexico, the organization noted that there are seven points of concern in the area of individual guarantees:

According to Amnesty's investigations, 99,946 military personnel were deployed during 2021. It should be noted that the current administration has assigned greater control of ports, customs, construction of public works, such as the recently inaugurated Felipe Angeles International Airport (AIFA) and the Maya Train, flagship works of the Morenista government.

“Despite international recommendations, the presidential cabinet continued to deploy to the streets, as part of its public security strategy, the largest number of military personnel since the start of the “war on drugs” in 2006, accuses the institution.

At the same time, they recalled that last year (2021) a bill was introduced to formally incorporate the National Guard into the armed forces.

Mexico is close to 100,000 missing and unlocated persons officially registered since 2006 to date, this according to the National Search Commission.

It should be noted that in 2021 alone, the authorities recorded at least 7,698 cases of missing and unlocated persons.

Impunity on this issue prevailed; only 35 convictions had been handed down for the crime of enforced disappearance. According to official figures, there were still more than 52,000 unidentified bodies, most of which were in mass graves. Several people looking for missing relatives lost their lives violently, but by the end of the year no one had been prosecuted for those deaths.

According to the Organization, in the territory “Torture continues to be widespread and systematic” and accuses that the government “is still pending” the publication of the National Programme to Prevent and Punish Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment.

It should be recalled that in August last year, the president signed a decree to release persons in prolonged pretrial detention who were elderly or victims of torture; however, as detailed by the NGO, the decree did not incorporate the recommendations of civil society organizations and limited the possibility to prove that torture had been suffered in the case of persons undergoing medical examinations.

The Mexican authorities have already been singled out by various institutions and organizations that defend human rights for violations of individual guarantees for children and adults migrants, mainly from South America and the Caribbean.

It should be noted that as of November 2021, the authorities had returned 101,571 migrants. “The management of migration by the National Guard constitutes a risk to the respect and guarantees of the human rights of migrants.”

Gender-based violence has been one of the federal government's Achilles heels. In 2021, 3,427 homicides of women were recorded, which reached historical figures. It should be noted that of the data collected by Amnesty, only 887 were classified as femicides.

The organization also denounced that in 2021 it documented arbitrary arrests, excessive use of force, sexual violence and criminalization of feminist protesters in the states of Jalisco, Querétaro and Aguascalientes.

AI data recorded that in 2021 there were at least seven homicides of journalists. To this we must add the 8 registered in the first months of 2022 alone. In addition, several human rights defenders have been disappeared in Mexico, such as Grisell Pérez Rivera, Claudia Uruchurtu Cruz and Irmas Galindo, as well as leaders of the Yaqui people.

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