The #SeguridadSinGuerra (#SecurityWithoutWar) collective, formed by social organizations, citizens and activists, has been one of the strongest voices against the Internal Security Law.
According to the movement, “normalizing the intervention of the Mexican Army in police work would contribute to perpetuate the situation of violence that we seek to reverse”. They argue that it is the state level governments who have the obligation to form effective police corporations that guarantee our security and avoid resorting to the service of the Armed Forces.
They also pointed out that biggest threats of this new law are:
- Gives the Armed Forces powers of policing, such as allowing them “preventive” actions at their discretion.
- It does not generate controls to verify respect for human rights, it only mentions that “they will be respected”.
- It allows the Federal Forces – including the military – to intervene against social protests if they believe they are not peaceful.
- Poor regulation of the use of force; it refers to deficient and unsupervised protocols.
- It attacks transparency by determining that all information on internal security measures will be confidential.
- It does not impose a time limit on internal security problems
- It does not oblige state and municipal authorities to strengthen their civilian police officers in time and according to specific goals
- Promotes military intervention in civilian intelligence areas.
- It does not establish robust checks and balances; it only talks about the Secretary of the Interior sending a report to the Bicameral Commission of the Congress of the Union.
- The use of vague definitions allow everything to fit into the figure of “internal security”.
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No More Blood in Mexico 