[NYTr] Human rights abuses "widespread" in Chiapas - Mexican ombudsman
 
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 16:22:01 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
sent by Milt Shapiro (mexnews)

Notimex via BBC Monitoring Americas - Jan 8, 2008

Text of report by Mexican news agency Notimex

["CEDH: Chiapas, Place of 'Widespread' Violation of Migrant's Human 
Rights " - Notimex headline]

Tuxtla Gutierrez, 6 January (Notimex) - Chiapas has a "significant" 
place in the human rights violations of migrants, where the principal 
institutions accused of these abuses are the police, said state 
ombudsman Juan Carlos Moreno Guillen.

In an interview, the president of the State Comission on Human Rights 
(CEDH) said that "Chiapas is the port of entry to Central America, 
and all the people who are going to seek the American dream enter 
through there.

"It is obvious that we have a significant place in the violation of 
human rights, but attending to them is not our place, but rather 
pertains to the National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH)," he said.

Nevertheless, he added that "we help when we initiate complaints for 
the violation of migrants' human rights, and even though they may 
involve local authorities as the alleged perpetrators, the CNDH is 
the one that receives the complaints."

The ombudsman recognized that there are all sorts of cases, serious 
and minor, against undocumented people who enter through the southern 
border, from extortion to humiliation, "but we do not do more than 
initiate the investigations."

He said also that the devastation of the railway infrastructure by 
the tail end of Hurricane "Stan" in October 2005 forced undocumented 
people to modify their route.

"Annually," he said, "about 200,000 are caught in the state, the 
majority from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, although they 
also come from other nations, and because of their anonymous 
condition, they are vulnerable to attacks."

According to the official, the Federal Preventive Police (PFP), the 
State Preventive Police, and the municipal police are, among others, 
the groups that catch undocumented people and are the focus of 
complaints of abuse against them.

He argued that as an issue of immigration under federal jurisdiction, 
the local human rights government group has no power to investigate 
and make recommendations.

Nevertheless, he recognized that they will have to pay attention to 
the state, federal, and municipal authorities, and above all, train 
them on human rights issues, since it seems that they do not realize 
that people have fundamental rights.

For that reason, he said that many institutions "cannot respect 
something they do not know about." The ideal thing is for the Central 
American nations to have an improved standard of living to avoid so 
much immigration and with it the human rights violations against 
undocumented people.

Source: Notimex news agency, Mexico City, in Spanish 1722 gmt 6 Jan 08
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