President Claudia Sheinbaum “inherited a country ravaged for almost two decades of violence” with an “almost total impunity” in which more than nine out of 10 homicides are not punished, as Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced on Wednesday .
The International Association presented the report ‘Double injustice: the shortcomings of the Criminal Justice System of Mexico in the Homicide Research’, which reports that the country has a rate of 28 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, almost double that the average of America ( 15), and above Colombia (25.7) and Brazil (21.3).
Juanita Goebertus, director of HRW for the Americas, said when presenting the document in Mexico City that “the security strategy of the previous government” by Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), “of non-bullet hugs, resulted in omisive attitudes , leaving unprotected communities in front of crime groups. ”
“This new government has announced that it will make changes in that policy, we follow the development carefully, (but) I insist: we are very concerned that this government, despite announcing these changes, has supported both militarization at the constitutional level, as well as the Reform to the Judiciary, ”he warned.
In addition to being “one of the highest in the world,” the New York headquarters notes that “the real rate” of homicides in Mexico “could be even greater”, since since 2007 more than 94,000 people have disappeared than the authorities than the authorities They have not found “neither alive nor dead.”
On the other hand, HRW documented that, from 2010 to 2022, state prosecutors opened about 300,000 investigations for malicious homicide, but only in 51,000 cases identified a suspect, which is equivalent to a clarification rate of 17%, “a tremendously low”.
While, for every 100 open -homicide investigations, only seven convictions between 2016 and 2021 were issued, add the report based on zero impunity data.
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Sheinbaum assumed the presidency after the record of more than 196,000 murders registered in the six-year period of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), of the same party, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena).
Homicides recounted 1.2% annually in 2024 to 30,057, although the murders have fallen by 12% in the first 196.5 -victims’ daily average of 76.5 victims, according to data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP).
Although the president has promised a strategy based on addressing the causes of violence and prioritizing intelligence, HRW criticized that “when President Sheinbaum took possession, about 230,000 soldiers were deployed in the country.”
“It has, of course, still a sexennium ahead and its legacy is at stake, it depends on that it is really arranged to bet on ending impunity for homicidal violence in Mexico, but if it continues to make the errors of the AMLO government, I I fear that this problem will not solve, ”said Goebertus.
HRW: people have Fear of denouncing
The organization presented the case of Pascuala López, an indigenous woman whose son Mateo died killed for refusing to participate in organized crime in Chiapas, state of the southern border of Mexico, where later the authorities “manufactured” a crime to arrest her husband while looking for justice.
“It hurts, I am an indigenous mother, I don’t know how to read, I don’t know much Spanish, but I like to raise my voice, I was not quiet and went to raise the complaint in 2021 on February 3, then the criminals knew it,” narrated.
In this context, Tyler Mattiace, a HRW researcher, explained that “the biggest challenge in the investigations of most homicides is that people are very afraid to participate because they really fear reprisals for participating in research and is a fear based on reality ”.
Mattiace presented five recommendations for the Government: to improve coordination between authorities, address the lack of basic investigation capacities, establish strategic plans for criminal prosecution, protect victims and witnesses, and strengthen internal control mechanisms in prosecutors.
With EFE information.
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