Tomorrow is the International Day of the Disappeared. Mexican families draw attention to the fate of their relatives

August 30th is the International Day of the Disappeared. This day raises awareness of the fate of individuals whose whereabouts is unknown to their relatives and/or legal representatives in cases of involuntary disappereances because of armed conflict or authoritarian regimes. In preparation for this day, different human rights organizations and families of the disappeared are carrying out different events tomorrow throughout Mexico. Please support the families by sending a twitter to Mexico’s president asking him to #findthedisappeared@PresidenciaMX

If the twitter messages come from abroad, you will giving the families a lot of support.

Press release from FUUNDEC: Three years of walking with dignity and pain in a tireless search

December 19, 2012  Saltillo, Coahuila

Three years ago we, who integrate the United Forces for our Disappeared in Coahuila, decided to speak out, organize ourselves and denounce the disappearance of our loved ones; we did this in a context where both authorities from the Institutionalized Revolutionary Party and the National Action party participated through collaboration and/or negligence in these crimes at the state and federal level.  Both levels of government and both parties stained our homes with darkness, terror and impunity.

A first group of 11 families, who at that time were looking for twenty one loved ones, gathered together on December 19, 2009.  Currently, we are looking for 290 missing persons in December 2012.

Repression on December 1st, 2012 in Mexico City

On December 1st, 2012, the new President of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, took power. At the same time, hundreds of protesters were outside the National Palace to denounce the corruption that surrounded the victory of the Institutionalized Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate in the 2012 presidential elections. According to public authorities and the student movement #yosoy132, there were agents provocateurs that gave the police an excuse to repress peaceful protesters and pedestrians that happened to walk in the area. Is this the return of PRI-style state repression?