REPORT: 14 Human Right Defenders were extrajudicially executed in 2020

Summary

This report results from the documentation of Extrajudicial Executions (EXE) committed against Human Right Defenders (HRD) in Mexico, that Comité Cerezo México has done with no interruption since 2008. This report covers the beginning of the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (December 1st, 2018) to the present date.

Some documented cases where already published in the most recent report (August 2020) by Acción Urgente Para Defensores de Derechos Humanos AC, Comité Cerezo México and the Campaña Nacional contra la Desaparición Forzada.

We must point out, as it is in all of our reports, that the data presented corresponds to extrajudicial executions, this means of human right violations committed by State agents through commission or acquiescence. Due to our mandate as a Human Rights Organizations we do not document homicides committed by non state actors, we only include EXE committed against HRD who have suffered this severe human rights violation, as a state response to their human rights defense actions.

First, we must clarify the term EXE and recover its human rights meaning:

An EXE occurs when State members, by commission or acquiescence (when they mandate non state actors), commit an illegitimate deprivation of life; therefore, it is defined as a “intentional homicide perpetrated o consented by people whose illegitimate actions are supported, in a mediate or immediate way, in the powers of the State” (ONU, 2005)

Read the Report in Spanish