Enforced Disappearance Feared in Case of Missing Activists

Edited by Ivan Martínez
2015-03-13 12:55:02

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Mexico City, March 13 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Two social activists remain disappeared more than a week after they went missing in the southern Mexico City neighborhood of Tlahuac.

The student activists, Julian Luna Guzman, 25, and his partner Betsy Ramirez Hernandez, 19, were last seen at midday on March 3 in the neighborhood’s community college.

It has been reported that the parents of both have filed missing persons reports in the attorney general’s Support Center for Missing and Absent Persons (CAPEA) as well as a report in Mexico City’s Commission on Human Rights. They also searched area morgues, hospitals and police stations.

The mother of Julian, Blanca Luna, told reporters that she fears the two may be victims of enforced disappearance. She added that her son, who has been detained on three previous occasions, in protests for his activism, had informed her that he believed plain-clothes officers were following him in days leading up to his disappearance.

On November 14th, Julian was detained along with a friend named Alejandro in the city-center of the capital by undercover police, but were not taken to the district attorney to be charged – which is the standard procedure. The two managed to draw attention to their arrest, which they were then promptly accused of robbing approximately $40 from police.

Yet the defense and their supporters said the arrest was illegal and the accusations of theft as falsified to justify their detention.

In strikingly similar circumstances, two other activists Jacqueline Santana and Bryan Reyes were detained the following day and accused of robbing the same amount from police.

Their defense has accused both incidents to be part of a broader illegal police operation to criminalize social protest.



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