Idle No More in Solidarity with Ayotzinapa

On September 26, 2014, 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Teachers’ College, in Iguala, went missing after they were attacked by state police and gunmen. Three students were killed and forty three “disappeared.” The bodies of the disappeared students have never been found and the Mexican government has not undertaken a credible investigation into the disappearance. The families keep struggling to find out what happened to the students.

This atrocity is part of a landscape of violence and impunity carried out through alliances between elements of the Mexican state and organized crime. The search for the students has uncovered more than 15 mass graves in neighbouring areas of the state of Guerrero, none of them containing the bodies of the students. In response, a national movement of resistance has emerged.

Idle No More organizers stand in solidarity with the missing 43 students and their families and the Caravan to Ottawa delegation travelling to share their story of resistance and hope. Their struggle and search for their loved one’s resonates with us as we seek justice for the murdered and missing Indigenous women, girls and two-spirits in Canada. The murder of Indigenous people’s across the Americas is at epidemic proportions and it’s time for governments to take action to protect Indigenous lives.

Canada plays a critical role in supporting the Mexican state’s responsibility for the disappearances. In 2012, two way trade between Mexico and Canada totalled $20 billion. As a signatory to NAFTA, Mexico is Canada’s 5th largest export destination. Despite the human rights crisis in Mexico, Canada’s refugee system has deemed it a ‘safe country.’

Grand Chief Philip Stewart, President of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs calls out Canada’s involvement: “I call onThomas Mulcair, the leader of the official opposition to raise this issue in the house. I call on the Conservative government to make a statement about the situation in Mexico and cut off relations with Mexico until human rights are respected.”

Join Idle No More at the Public Forum With Leaders of Mexican Social Uprising – Ayotzinapa to Toronto as we join the delegation and lift our voices together and speak out against state violence.

April 29, 7pm: Public Forum With Leaders of Mexican Social Uprising – Ayotzinapa to Toronto at Ryerson University – 350 Victoria Street (@ Gould), Library Lecture Theatre, Room 72

– For further information about the caravan to Ottawa visit this page

For media requests contact:
– Raul Burbano, Common Frontiers, (416) 522-8615, burbano@rogers.com

Witnesses from Mexico will testify today to Parliament’s International Human Rights Subcommittee about the missing students of Ayotzinapa, and call for overdue Canadian action

MEDIA ADVISORY

(Ottawa, April 28, 2015) The mother of one of 46 students from a teacher-training college in the Mexican community of Ayotzinapa who were killed or forcibly disappeared during a September 2014 attack by Mexican police and gunmen will testify before Parliament’s Subcommittee on International Human Rights this afternoon, along with a surviving student and a lawyer for the families of the victims.

Their goal is to make visible a disturbing pattern of grave abuses perpetrated by state security forces, and call for attention to serious failures on the part of government authorities to protect human rights in Mexico, a country that Canada has designated a so-called “safe country”.

The members of the Mexican delegation who will testify to Canadian MPs are:

• Hilda Legideño Vargas, whose son Jorge Antonio was forcibly disappeared in the September 2014 attack;

• Jorge Luis Clemente Balbuena, a student leader at the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college;

• Isidoro Vicario Aguilar, a Me’phaa indigenous lawyer with the Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre, an award-winning NGO that represents families affected by the September 2014 attack and a prior attack in December 2011, in which two other Ayotzinapa students were killed.

The three witnesses will testify to members of the MP Sub-committee on International Human Rights from 1 to 2 PM on Tuesday, April 28, 2015.

Their appearance before the Subcommittee follows a tour through BC, Ontario, and Quebec to raise awareness about the attack on the Ayotzinapa students and an ongoing climate of danger for those who speak up about human rights violations in Mexico.  The tour is supported by more than 50 organizations in Canada.

On March 24, 2015, people in Argentina remembered the military coup d’etat and the Ayotzinapa students

It was the State! Credit: RFelderlder

A progressive version of el Chavo Credit: RFelder

Photos of the 43 Ayotzinapa students Credit: RFelder

Message for Canadians and the international community from four Mexican human rights defenders

We are all Ayotzinapa

Briefing note on events related to disappearances in Mexico from February 5 to March 5, 2015

March 9, 2015. During the month of February, Mexico’s General Prosecutor’s Office (PGR) attempted to close the case of the 43 disappeared students of Ayotzinapa by arguing that, based on the testimonies from witnesses and evidence gathered in a landfill site in Cocula Guerrero, the students were incinerated by the criminal group Guerreros Unidos. The Argentine Forensic Team questioned this as they were not present during the collection of evidence in Cocula. The Forensic Team was also concerned about the possible manipulation of evidence in order to fit the PGR’s conclusions. Academics from Mexico’s National University also question the PGR’s argument and indicated that the physical evidence provided by the former contradicts the incineration argument. According to these experts, the burning of bone tissues requires special equipment, which was not available in the landfill site.

Parents of the Ayotzinapa students take their case to UN meeting in Geneva this week.

From Telesur

Do not forget the disappeared this Christmas.

The Mexican government is hoping that people will be distracted by the Christmas holidays and will forget the disappeared, particularly the search for the #42 #Ayotzinapa students. Do not let the Mexican government do that. Send the following message to twitter @EPN @PresidenciaMX “Search for the disappeared. Bring them back alive.” Here it is a video of the families of the #42 missing students describing how their Christmas is going to be this year.

Please see the article below. Vidulfo was one of the HR defenders that was part of the “No More Blood” speaking tour in Canada in 2012

Mexico Intelligence Agency Investigates Rights Defenders

From Telesur/Clayton Conn

Vidulfo Rosales (Center) | Photo: Clayton Conn/ teleSUR

Published 8 December 2014 (11 hours 51 minutes ago)

The agency has opened dossiers on human rights defenders counseling the families of the 43 Ayotzinapa students.

Mexico’s intelligence agency is investigating and potentially filing reports that criminalize human rights defenders and lawyers who counsel the families of the disappeared Ayotzinapa students according to a new report released on Monday.

The lengthy report entitled: “Ficha Cisen a abogado de normalistas” written in the electronic investigative journal, Reporte Indigo, shows that Mexico’s Center for Research and National Security (CISEN) – an equivalent to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has opened dossiers on human rights defenders from the Human Rights Center of the Mountain “Tlachinollan” calling them “dangerous to governance.”

The report details that Vidulfo Rosales, lawyer and representative of the 43 families of the Ayotzinapa students as well as Tlachinollan’s director, Abel Barrera are “elements” that pose a “threat” to the government and that the two participate in “subversive” activities.

The two have been vocal supporters of the families and have played the authorized voice on behalf of the families during meetings with the Interior Secretary, Attorney General and even the Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto.

“It is outrageous that public resources are used to weaken the human rights movement instead of using intelligence capabilities to combat infiltration and corruption by narco-governments and guarantee that serious human rights violations do not go unpunished,” declared a public letter signed by over a dozen reputable human rights organizations.

“The proven track record of Vidulfo Rosales as a lawyer and Abel Barrera as director, in defending human rights, has been instrumental in the region to counter impunity and abuse of power for years. We condemn the federal government’s attempt to discredit and harass the defense work in this context of profound risk due to their support of the families of the 43 students forcibly disappeared in Iguala on September 26th and 27th, 2014,” continued the letter.

The Human Rights Center of the Mountain “Tlachinollan” has defended and counselled the majority impoverished indigenous and farm working communities of the “Montaña” region of Guerrero for years, gaining them considerable popular and base support in nearby communities.

Video from Tlachinollan and Opus Social Media

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/112551049″>TodosSabemos 20NOV14, AYOTZINAPA</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/opussocialmedia”>Opus Social Media</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>