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News > Mexico

Mexico: One in Three Violent Attacks Are Against Land Defenders

  • Rural communities of the Coloradas de la Virgen and Choreachi, in the Sierra Tarahumara, in Chihuahua, Mexico, 2018.

    Rural communities of the Coloradas de la Virgen and Choreachi, in the Sierra Tarahumara, in Chihuahua, Mexico, 2018. | Photo: Twitter/ @Pajaropolitico

Published 20 March 2020
Opinion

Most of those killed were from rural and Indigenous communities.

In Mexico, one out of every three violent attacks is directed against environmental and land defenders, mainly those who oppose energy projects, according to study.

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Between 2012 and 2019, 83 environmental defenders died, while hundreds more were beaten and threatened.

Most of those killed were from rural and Indigenous communities affected by renewable energy mega-projects, the Mexican Center for Environmental Rights (CEMED) revealed in a recent study.
 
They were killed "for demonstrating against these invasive projects, promoted in 2013 with the energy reform of then-President Enrique Peña Nieto," the research said.

"Land defenders denounce to UN representative abuses suffered in Mexico."
 

"This reality reveals that, in Mexico, environmental defenders lack freedom and security to exercise a basic human right: to defend their beliefs and properties," a CEMDED spokesperson said.

Furthermore, the figures position Mexico as one of the most dangerous nations in the Americas for the defense of the environment, the report added.

Since the country declared war on drugs in 2006, the escalation of violence has increased. Aggressions are selective, and, in the face of them, impunity persists, the report concluded.

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