Report No. 264 (2020) IACHR. Petition No. 1594-10 (Mexico)

• Petition Number: 1594-10
• Report Number: 264
• Case Type: Admissibility
• Court: Inter-American Comission of Human Rights
• Alleged Victim: Pedro Nuñez Perez y otros

REPORT No. 264/20

PETITION 1594-10

REPORT ON ADMISSIBILITY

PEDRO NUÑEZ PEREZ ET AL

MEXICO

OEA/Ser.L/V/II.

D.. 280

25 September 2020

Original: Spanish

Approved electronically by the Commission on September 25. 2020.

Cite as: IACHR, R. No. 264/20. Petition 1594-10. A.. P.N.P. et al. M.. September 25, 2020.

www.iachr.org

I. INFORMATION ABOUT THE PETITION

Petitioner:	Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolome de las Casas, and Organizacion X.
:	Pedro Nuñez Perez and forty-nine other persons1
Respondent S.:	M.2
Rights invoked:	Articles 3 (juridical personality), 4 (life), 5 (humane treatment), 7 (personal liberty), 8 (fair trial), 11 (privacy), 19 (rights of the child), 21 (property), 22 (freedom of movement and residence), 24 (equal protection) and 25 (judicial protection) of the American Convention3, in relation to its Articles 1.1 (obligation to respect rights) and 2 (domestic legal effects); Articles 1, 6, and 8 of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture; Article I of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons; and Article 7 of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women (“Convention of Belem do Para”).

II. PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE IACHR⁴

Filing of the petition:	Petition opened by the IACHR on October 5, 20105
Additional information received at the stage of initial review	November 8, 2010, November 9, 2010, December 3, 2010, A. 14, 2011, J. 18, 2011, August 18, 2011, September 19, 2011, November 14, 2011 and October 21, 2015
N. of the petition to the S.:	May 13, 2016
S.'s first response:	J. 13, 2017

III. COMPETENCE

Competence Ratione personae:	Y.
Competence Ratione loci:	Y.
Competence Ratione temporis:	Y.
Competence Ratione materiae:	Y., American Convention (instrument of accession deposited on March 24, 1981); Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons (instrument of ratification deposited on A. 9, 2002); Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture (instrument of ratification deposited on J. 22, 1987); and Convention of Belem do Para (instrument of ratification deposited on November 12, 1998)

IV. DUPLICATION OF PROCEDURES AND INTERNATIONAL RES JUDICATA, COLORABLE CLAIM, EXHAUSTION OF DOMESTIC REMEDIES AND TIMELINESS OF THE PETITION

Duplication of procedures and international res judicata:	No
Rights declared admissible:	Articles 3 (juridical personality), 4 (life), 5 (humane treatment), 7 (personal liberty), 8 (fair trial) 21 (property), 22 (freedom of movement and residence), 24 (equal protection), 25 (judicial protection) and 26 (economic, social, cultural and environmental rights) of the American Convention, in relation to its Articles 1.1 (obligation to respect rights) and 2 (domestic legal effects); Article I of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons; Articles 1, 6, and 8 of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture; and Article 7 of the Convention of Belem do Para
Exhaustion of domestic remedies or applicability of an exception to the rule:	Y., the exception of Article 46.2.c) of the American Convention is applicable, in the terms of Section VI
Timeliness of the petition:	Y., in the terms of Section VI

V. ALLEGED FACTS

1. The petitioners allege the international responsibility of the M.S. for the extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, forced displacement, tortures, arbitrary deprivation of liberty and issuance of irregular arrest warrants that allegedly occurred during, and on the occasion of, a violent conflict between the indigenous communities of V.V. and Nueva Palestina, in the municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas, with the participation of state agents in favor of the latter community. A. of which, they allege, occurred in the framework of a strategy of violent land dispossession undertaken by the M. authorities against indigenous communities such as V.V. and others in the same region of the country.

2. In the petition it is explained that the events took place in the context of a deep-rooted territorial conflict between the indigenous communities of V.V. and Nueva Palestina, a conflict partly derived from certain decisions adopted by the M. S. in previous years and decades in relation to the lands of the communities settled in the region of Selva L. in Chiapas⁶. The petitioners denounce that on November 13, 2006, the community of V.V. was violently attacked by a group of forty members of the community of Nueva Palestina who were armed with machetes, sticks and firearms, and who were accompanied by almost three hundred armed officers of the S. Sectorial Police of Chiapas, and sixteen judicial and administrative public officers⁷. During the incursion, these armed persons killed several people from V.V., tied up others and took them by force to an unknown destination, hit and mistreated some of the inhabitants, and stole their belongings. The petitioners claim that the result of the attack was the extrajudicial execution of three persons⁸ and the disappearance of four others —the bodies of two of the victims of disappearance were allegedly found extra-officially in 2007, positively identified and delivered to their families in 2011⁹. A., as a consequence of the attack, thirty-six people were forcibly displaced to the mountains, including eight children, who subsequently took shelter in the community of Nuevo Tila, and who had not been able by 2015 to return to V.V., nor had they received any kind of support from the authorities, being dispersed all over the state of Chiapas¹⁰. It is also claimed that a woman from the community, P.N. González, was a victim of kidnapping and mistreatments that day, which severely affected her physical and psychological health, and which are said to have eventually caused her death on A. 29, 2010¹¹. B. on these facts, it is claimed that the S. violated her right to the protection of honor and dignity, and incurred in gender-based violence.

3. The petitioners allege that to date, a serious investigation of the events has not been conducted and that, on the contrary, some innocent persons have been unfairly accused by the authorities of having been the perpetrators of the crimes in V.V.. They point out that the S. opened two investigative procedures: one of them through Administrative Record 786/CAJ74-T1/2006, which was opened by the Prosecutor’s Office on November 13, 2006, and was subsequently advanced to the preliminary inquiry stage, in the framework of which, on December 27, 2006, a criminal action was initiated against twenty-two innocent people, including inhabitants of the Nuevo Tila community and some of the victims of V.V., among them P.N.G. and Roberto Nuñez Gonzalez. And, on the other hand, a criminal complaint was presented by the surviving victims on November 15, 2006, Administrative Record 1334/CAJ74/2006, in relation to the disappeared persons and the persons deprived of liberty in the attack. They allege that this investigation has not moved forward, and that the S. has not acted with due diligence to find the missing persons.

4. Petitioners report that one of the persons who was wrongfully accused, prosecuted and arrested for the events was D.A. Meneses, from the neighboring community of Nuevo Tila who, on the day of the events, went to V.V. with other members of Nuevo Tila to assist any possibly injured persons; moment at which he was arrested by police agents, who forced him to pick up the corpse of one of the deceased persons, and subsequently took him by helicopter to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Palenque. The petitioners allege that there “he was tortured for refusing to sign a document that they told him contained his declaration, which he refused to sign because he did not know what was written on it.” Subsequently, he was held in pre-charge detention for ninety days at the “Quinta Pitiquitos” location. On December 27, 2006, the Prosecutor of Palenque brought criminal proceedings against him for the offenses of aggravated homicide and organized crime. He was imprisoned at the Center for Social Re-adaptation (CERESO) No. 17 of the municipality of Playas de Catazajá, and was not released until December 4, 2007. Four other inhabitants of the community of Nuevo Tila were also allegedly subjected to arbitrary arrest warrants¹² which the M. S. had not revoked despite knowing who the real perpetrators were; the petitioners expressly identify two of these four persons as supporters of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN, Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional).

5. The petitioners also report that on J. 6, 2007, a commission composed of representatives of different social and human rights organizations of Chiapas -including the two petitioner organizations- travelled the route between the communities of V.V. and...