Yaqui: From Mexican Prison for Water Rights to Ireland's Frontline Defenders Platform 2019

In Dublin, Ireland, Mario Luna Romero, Vicam Yaqui from Sonora, Mexico, with U.N. Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders Michel Forst, during the Inaugural of the Dublin Platform for Human Rigths  Defenders at Risk.

Espanol: Desde Dublín Irlanda, entrevista con Michel Forst (Relator especial de la ONU para Defensores de Derechos Humanos) ; durante acto inaugural de la plataforma Dublín, FrontLine Defender

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Vicam Yaqui gather in Sonora to discuss water rights in 2012. Photo Brenda Norrell, Censored News.

Yaqui kidnapped and imprisoned by Mexican government for defending water rights during Vicam Yaqui highway blockade,  is in Ireland with Human Rights Defenders at Risk

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Mario Luna Romero was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Mexican government for one year, as Vicam Yaqui maintained a two-year road blockade in defense of their water rights. The City of Hermosillo was intent on stealing Yaqui water for the Independence Aqueduct.

Mario is the Traditional Government's Secretary of Vicam, Sonora, Mexico. He is a community organizer and designated spokesperson of Vicam Yaqui, protecting the water of the Yaqui River against the government of Mexico's aqueduct. On September 11, 2014, Luna Romero was imprisoned and set free one year and ten days later. There was no proof of any charges against him. 
The Vicam Yaqui highway blockade was an incredible two-year highway blockade, as Yaqui blocked a major highway, delaying semi-trucks through their land, slowing trucks to the U.S. and elsewhere near the Pacific coast of central Mexico. Earlier, Vicam Yaqui welcomed the Zapatistas and held water forums to uphold their water rights.

Migrant Rights Defenders under attack at US Mexico Border, Central America

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Defenders Beyond Borders: Migrant Rights Defenders Under Attack in Central America, Mexico and the United States

This new report shows attacks on migrant aid workers at the US Border, and in Mexico and Central America. Here are just a few of the incidents:

SPECIAL OPS ON US BORDER -- January 2019 Surveillance, Harassment by the United States and México International Liaison Unit (ILU), Customs & Border Protection, joint US-Mexico intelligence operation

KIDNAPPING: August 3, 2019 Kidnapping Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico Organized Crime AMAR Migrant Shelter
BORDER SURVEILLANCE -- August 10, 2019 Surveillance, Threats Sonoyta, Sonora, Mexico Plainclothes officers who claimed to be “police” and on February 13, 2019 Arrest Magdalena Mixhuca Sports Center, Mexico City. Unidentified plainclothes agents

ARSON, MEXICO -- February 2019 Attack, Arson Attempt Against House & Vehicle Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico Unidentified individual

US CONGRESS DEFAMATION -- May 2018 Defamation by US House of Representatives, Washington D.C., USA by US Congressperson. Reported by Pueblo Sin Fronteras
ARIZONA ARREST -- January 17, 2018 Arrest Ajo, Arizona, USA Plainclothes Border Patrol agents. Victim: Scott Warren. May 5, 2019 Detention, Harassment, Threats Lukeville Port of Entry, Arizona, USA Customs and Border Protection

Read more in report. Download the Report

Press statement

A new joint report from three international human rights organizations has revealed that migrant rights defenders protecting migrant families, refugees, asylum seekers, and others along migrant routes from Honduras to the United States are facing severe threats from both state and non-state actors. The report, Defenders Beyond Borders, launching this week in Washington, DC and Mexico City, combines research from Front Line Defenders (FLD), Programa de Asuntos Migratorios de la Universidad Iberoamericana Tijuana-Ciudad de México (PRAMI) and Red TDT, and features documentation and first hand accounts of attacks and arrests in the US and Mexico, perpetrated by US Customs and Border Protection, Mexican federal police, non-state militia groups, and the Mexican military.

Download the Report

Researchers interviewed more than 30 human rights defenders in 10 cities on both sides of the Mexico-US border, and along migration routes in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Many defenders interviewed are current migrants, refugees, asylum seekers or undocumented people themselves.

The investigation found dozens of cases of assault, arrest, deportation, detention, interrogation, intimidation, digital surveillance and harassment inflicted against activists, journalists, humanitarians, and lawyers carrying out legitimate and peaceful human rights work.

Andrew Anderson, Front Line Defenders Executive Director, said the targetted group includes lawyers and “those helping migrants to understand and prepare for legal immigration processes. HRDs accompanying asylum seekers at US ports of entry receive threats from armed CBP agents. Similarly, in Mexico, shelter organizers and activists who accompany migrants through visa regularisation processes are threatened – often by the military – for helping people navigate the state’s own system.”


“Mexico’s increasingly militarized response to migration follows the decades-long US strategy of prevention by deterrence and the intentional weaponization of the desert, resulting in thousands of human remains found in the borderlands. This militarized assault on migrant rights defenders is especially dangerous for women HRDs, queer activists, and undocumented community organizers. WHRDs in Texas and California have received graphic, sexualized death threats from pro-Trump social media accounts and militia groups based on the border, while queer defenders are routinely subjected to sexual harassment at US ports of entry. For undocumented HRDs, arrests related to their visible activism could result in indefinite detention in ICE custody – where transwomen have been beaten and died – or deportation.”
- Erin Kilbride, Research & Visibility Coordinator, Front Line Defenders

HRDs in Guatemala, Mexico and the US have been arrested, assaulted and put on trial for the provision of humanitarian aid including distributing food, water and medical supplies. Activists across Mexico report that the Mexican military is increasingly raiding, threatening, and harassing emergency shelters for migrant families.

The report found that immigration policies are also exacerbating threats from organised criminal groups, who often view HRDs as disrupting trafficking revenues. As defenders respond to the humanitarian emergency caused by the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, known as “Remain in Mexico,” for example, those organizing shelters and providing emergency aid in Mexican border towns report a marked spike in threats from local organized criminal groups seeking to profit off the influx of vulnerable migrants.
Violations
#Judicial Harassment #Arrest / Detention / Imprisonment #Other Harassment
Rights
#Refugees / IDPs / Migrants
Location
#El Salvador #Guatemala #Honduras #Mexico #United States of America
HRDs
Gabriela Castañeda, Bartolo Antonio Fuentes, Irineo Mujica, Nicole Ramos, Andrea Margarita Núñez Chaim, Sister Bertha López, Scott Warren, Ana Adlerstein, Hector Ruiz

BORDER WALL: Trump's Bulldozers Killing Saguaros at Organ Pipe National Monument Today

Photos by Kevin Dahl

BORDER WALL: Trump's Bulldozers Killing Saguaros at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

Today at Ajo, Arizona, near the western border of the Tohono O'odham Nation. It is located east of Ajo, Arizona, and southwest of Tucson.
Read more from the National Parks Conservation Association:
https://www.npca.org/articles/2183-how-a-border-wall-could-harm-two-desert-parks-a-closer-look?fbclid=IwAR2ZJ00d-5zdDzTQDBQUHLQyHBfzpi-uZTsv-fQHfHzkqCEVDXqgzAw9ljo

Saguaro Cactus, which grows nowhere else in the world, and the burrowing owl: Just two of the living beings that Trump's bulldozers killed today on the Arizona border, in violation of all protection laws, while building Apartheid and seizing land for the U.S. and its corporate thieves. -- Censored News

The saguaro is one of many plants in Arizona protected by the Native Plant Protection Act, and within national park lands, the removal of any plant is illegal. Trump has annihilated all protection laws, and is now annihilating life itself in the precious and pristine Sonoran Desert.

The company bulldozing Saguaro Cactus on the Arizona border at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument: Trump's destruction of all living things contractor is Southwest Valley Contractors in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The company is now bulldozing the Saguaros. https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/news/2019/08/15/southwest-valley-constructors-80m-border-wall-work.html

Screenshots from videos by Censored News. Thank you Kevin for sharing with Censored News.