Facing Human Rights 'Crisis,' Mexico Refuses to Release Records on Michoacan Killings Latin Dispatch
go to original March 3, 2016

The sign reads, "Forced disappearance, terror strategy." (Reuters)

Mexico is currently undergoing a “crisis of gross violations of human rights,” according to a report released Wednesday by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. On the same day, Mexico’s transparency monitor refused to release the autopsy records of 42 people killed by federal police last May in Michoacán state — a case whose investigation the IACHR characterized in their report as containing “irregularities.”

The report was based on observations made during an IACHR visit to Mexico last fall, and focuses particularly on the issues of forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and torture, impunity as well as violence against journalists and human rights activists. While it acknowledges the actions that the state has taken to address the current human rights situation, it “confirmed a deep gulf between the legislative and judicial framework and the daily reality millions of people face in accessing justice, violence prevention and other public initiatives.”

The National Institute for Information Access, Mexico’s partially independent agency for transparency oversight, agreed with the government’s decision to deny a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press for access to the Michoacán autopsy reports. They ruled that the records should be kept as a state secret for five years, and stated that they did not contain any evidence that serious human rights violations were committed during the Michoacán killings on May 22, 2015. Yet according to the IACHR report, “photographs and statements from locals appear to indicate possible acts of torture, extrajudicial executions, crime scene tampering and the planting of weapons.” Furthermore, “there was reportedly confirmation that more than 70 percent of the victims had been shot in the back of the neck at point-blank range.”

Read the rest at Latin Dispatch

Related: Mexico Human Rights: Government Denies Mexico Going Through Crisis (Mexico Voices)

Related: As Many as 98 percent of Crimes Go Unpunished in Mexico, OAS Report Notes (Fox News Latino)

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