UN Committee against Torture expresses grave concern over torture in Mexico

Mexico: UN Committee against Torture expresses grave concern for the practice of torture in Mexico
SIPAZ blog – Internation Service for Peace – 14 November, 2012

On 31 October the United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT), with headquarters in Geneva, opened its evaluation of the Mexican State, in the presence of a delegation of more than 30 public officials from the federal government and that of different states. The CAT is entrusted with monitoring the observance by member-states of the Convention against Torture.

The Committee expressed its grave concern for the practice of torture in the country, particularly in light of the use of armed forces in tasks of public security and the “phenomenon of grave impunity” in which acts of torture remain. It indicated that the penal reform that seeks to change this practice by means of a transition to an oral and accusatory system is not serving well, given that security forces and the Public Ministry continue to utilize coerced testimony as evidence in juridical proceses.

Among the more than 70 questions posed by the CAT experts, those associated with the “evident contrast” of the number of denunciations of cases of torture and the number of punishments meted out were stressed.

By means of a communique released jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), Governance (Segob), and the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR), it was noted that the ten members of the CAT posed several challenges to the Mexican State as regards the classification of the crime of torture at the national level, the application and effects of the Istanbul Protocol, the advances in the implementation of the reform of the judicial system, the situation of migrants in the country, the application of community control, the protection of the human rights of women, as well as challenges in the prison system, among other things. …more