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Human rights abuses continue to plague Mexican society. In the countryside paramilitaries commit atrocities and terrorize villages. Bands of campesinos have been responsible for heinous murders in inter-community disputes. And there are unsolved mass murders and rapes of young women in Ciudad Juarez.
On this edition of Making Contact, we take a look at these human rights crimes and some responses from human rights organizations. We also hear from a former Mexican general imprisoned for speaking out against human rights abuses committed by the Mexican military.
Featuring:
Domingo Perez Gomez, a campesino who witnessed murders in his community; Maria Victoria Gutierrez Mendez, a campesina whose community was intimidated by paramilitaries; Brigadier General José Francisco Gallardo Rodríguez, human rights activist, Mexican General, prisoner of conscience; Diego Zavala, Amnesty International; Cinthia Vasquez, resident of Cuidad Juarez; Gloria Solis, mother of missing woman; Ximena Andion, Mexico City-based Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights; Lorena Mendez, California-based television producer and activist;Sergio Gonzales, Mexican journalist, author of Huesos En El Desierto, (Bones in the Desert), an investigative account of Juarez serial murders.
For more information:
Global Exchange –San Francisco, CA
Amnesty International, USA –Washington, DC
