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Stephen Jacob
“ World Community Responds to Murder of Digna Ochoa, leading human rights
lawyer”
The Lawyers Weekly Vol. 21, No. 30 December 7, 2001
World Community
Responds To Murder of Digna Ochoa, leading human rights lawyer
By Stephen Jacob
The
year-old government of Mexican President Vicente Fox has come under heavy
criticism in the aftermath of the October 19th murder
of attorney and human rights activist Digna Ochoa, with denunciations and
expressions of concern issued by Amnesty International, the US State
Department, and Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Lawyer’s Rights Watch Canada is demanding a full and effective investigation
into the killing, and calling on the Mexican government to provide protection
to other human rights workers believed to be in danger. Ochoa’s killers left a
note behind warning: “If you continue,
this will also happen to another.”
Mexico
has a long record of human rights abuses developed over the 71 year rule of
Mexico’s one-party government, the Institutional Revolutionary Party. During
its reign, a former Mexican Army General, Jose Francisco Gallardo, publicly
attributed the majority of Mexico’s human rights abuses to the army, including
the execution and disappearance of civilians (he was subsequently imprisoned on
embezzlement charges in 1993, a sentence he continues to serve). It is widely
accepted that Ochoa was murdered for
her work as a lawyer, which most
recently included defending Teodoro Cabrera and Rodolfo Montiel, two peasant
ecologists who claim the military tortured them to extract confessions on
fabricated drug charges.
In
response to the killing, Fox has commuted the sentences of Cabrera and Montiel,
but human rights activists contend that not enough is being done. They
criticize Fox for his failure to establish his promised Truth Commission, and
for his controversial appointment of Rafael Marcial Maceda de la Concha, a
former army general, as Federal Attorney General. No stranger to Ochoa and her
work, Maceda de la Concha earlier this year disallowed expert testimony she
submitted in the Cabrera/Montiel trial that supported the claim of state
torture, and in May shelved the investigation into crimes against Ochoa,
including numerous death threats and an attempt on her life in October 1999.
Days
after Ochoa’s murder, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, for the second time, ordered the
Mexican government to protect the lives of Ochoa’s colleagues at PRODH (the
Miguel Augustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center), and to investigate Ochoa’s
murder, an order Mexico is bound by
pursuant to the American Convention of Human Rights.
Lawyer’s
Rights Watch Canada (LRWC), which assists lawyers and other human rights
defenders threatened or sanctioned because of their advocacy, is calling on the
Mexican government to act to protect
the lives and professional integrity of Digna’s co-workers; ensure prosecutions
and trials of those believed to be responsible; publicly condemn attacks
against and harassment and intimidation of lawyers and other human rights
defenders; and act to end impunity for human rights violators. For
more information about Digna Ochoa and LRWC’s response to her murder contact lrwc@portal.ca
Stephen
Jacob is a Vancouver-based freelance journalist, who volunteers at LRWC and the
International Centre for Criminal Law Reform. He can be reached sdjacob@sfu.ca
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