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The Mexican activist who was arrested by the Prosecutor's Office that he denounced for years

2021-02-11T22:01:38.478Z


The enforced disappearances and the arrest of a human rights defender in the Mexican state of Nayarit reaches the United Nations


The activist Santiago Pérez, in a search for clandestine graves in Nayarit. COURTESY

Mexican activist Santiago Pérez is serving 14 days in prison this Thursday.

On the night of January 28, a group of hooded police officers broke into his home in Tepic, the capital of the state of Nayarit, to take him prisoner.

They accused him of having raped two minors and, with an arrest warrant issued in 2006, they put him in jail.

Nayarit, the tourist pearl of the Mexican Pacific, has been immersed for several years in a scene of multiple kidnappings, murders and disappearances.

The arrest of one of the most important human rights defenders of that entity takes place in a context of growing complaints against state authorities.

The details of the case have concerned the United Nations Committee against Forced Disappearances, which has asked Mexico to guarantee that the activist's life is preserved and that he is subjected to a fair and impartial trial.

Santiago Pérez became an activist in June 2017, after the disappearance of his son.

The terror regime had reached Nayarit four years earlier, with the appointment of Édgar Veytia as Attorney General and Chief of Police.

In those years, the line between state authorities and the drug cartels became blurred.

“The plundering, the theft of livestock begins and many rumors of kidnappings are heard.

The agents arrested people, took them away and appeared dead two or three days later, some with visible signs of torture, ”Pérez said in an interview with EL PAÍS in August 2019.

Veytia was arrested in March 2017 at an airport in the United States and ended up sentenced to 20 years in prison for drug trafficking.

His detention did not stop the disappearances in the small state of Nayarit, where between 2018 and 2019 more than a thousand disappeared people were registered.

"The shootings have calmed down, but there are still executions and uprisings, and they continue to be attributed to armed people in vehicles belonging to the Prosecutor's Office," the activist told this newspaper at the time.

Pérez spent months searching for his son until he found the body in a clandestine grave.

His work made him one of the leaders of the victims' families collectives, which in the last month had reached about twenty graves located.

“Santiago found Eloir [his son] in January 2018 and his narrative was 'I'm not going to stop until I find them all.'

There begins a wave of searches and more bodies are found, ”says Cristina Lozano, from the Idheas Strategic Litigation in Human Rights organization.

The lawyer, who has accompanied the case, assures that in the days before Pérez's arrest there were attacks against other activists.

On January 29, hours after the arrest, the UN Committee against Forced Disappearances urged the Mexican Government to adopt "the necessary measures" so that the groups of relatives of victims of Nayarit can "carry out their activities as human rights defenders ”.

The United Nations Committee also warned of a "campaign of persecution and false accusations initiated by the Government of Nayarit against individuals and groups that have denounced impunity, corruption and crimes committed by the State Prosecutor's Office."

Five days later, it communicated its concern about the conditions in which Pérez had been detained.

According to the Nayarit Prosecutor's Office, the activist is charged with the crime of "aggravated rape" of two 15-year-old girls.

The alleged events occurred between March and April 2006, when Pérez was in charge of a recovery center for addicts.

In a somewhat confusing statement, the authorities assure that the detainee abused four minors, forcing them to “undress,” “touching” them, and forcing them to have sex “on various occasions and in groups. ”.

He is arrested based on a warrant issued on October 9, 2006.

Lozano affirms that there are many inconsistencies in the information that the Prosecutor's Office has given so far.

“They arrest him with an arrest warrant from 14 years ago.

We can be in the presence of something engineered to send a message of intimidation to human rights defenders, ”he says.

Pérez's arrest has left a climate of tension and fear among the groups of victims' families.

"They no longer know if it is convenient to pressure the authorities or not," adds the lawyer.

This newspaper consulted the Prosecutor's Office about the inconsistencies, but avoided commenting on the case because "the secrecy of the investigations establishes it."

The United Nations Committee has also asked Mexico to explain why it was detained 14 years after issuing the arrest warrant, “precisely at a time when there have been several acts of intimidation and reprisals against human rights actors in Nayarit ”.

To respond, the Ministry of the Interior sent a team to the jail earlier this month to visit Pérez and confirm that he is in good health.

In a statement issued on February 8, the Undersecretary of Human Rights, Alejandro Encinas, believes that "his imprisonment could be linked to his activity" as a defender and calls for "an impartial investigation of the facts" that are accused of him.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-02-11

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