Screenshot: Héctor Casique Fernández accuses his torturers, March 2017.Mainstream media apparently continues to ignore the true reality of
Mexico, a country where massive human rights violations and torture are common
everyday practice. A country of violence fuelled by impunity and a land where those in power organise crime and
disappear those who dare to challenge their actions.
Mexicans are people who are more scared of security forces than of
criminals. An Amnesty
International survey found in 2014 that 64%
of the population are scared of being tortured if taken into custody and that
thousands of innocent people are in jail as torture is commonly used by
security forces to obtain “confessions” or as punishment.
Mexico has always been considered
lacking in adequate security but the fear of people has increased acutely since
President Enrique Peña Nieto took office in 2012. But the fear of people has increased acutely since
President Enrique Peña Nieto took office in 2012.
According to a March 2016 survey
by Mexico’s official National Statistics Institute (INEGI), 69.9% of people older than 18 years of age
feel insecure at any time of day when away from home.
This percentage — according to the same survey
— is much higher in Mexico City, where about 88% feel unsafe when away from
home no matter what time of day it is. In the internationally-renowned Mexican
resort city Acapulco, 86 percent feel insecure.
Getting
away with torture
Torture and ill-treatment continues to be widespread in Mexico, as
confirmed by
the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
Nils Melzer in his report to the UN Human Rights Council in February this year.
Common methods of torture include suffocation, sexual violence, electric
shocks, threats of death, beatings, and psychological torture.
Mexico is a desolate country where today the rule of law applies only to
those who can afford it. As Melzer noted in his report, 98% of crimes in Mexico
remain unpunished.
‘Fortunately,’ however, the
recent assassination of my friend and
colleague Mexican journalist and writer Javier Valdez Cárdenas made the
headlines globally and in September 2014, the Ayotzinapa case of the enforced
disappearance of 43 young teacher trainees made its way around the world.
Infamous example – the experience of Héctor Casique Fernández
These cases were met with the harshest of international condemnation. But
in Mexico, there was no repercussion whatsoever. These and thousands of other
crimes committed by state officials remain unresolved.
The sad truth is that tens of thousands of human rights violations committed
by these state officials are never heard about, outside of Mexico.
One hugely infamous example is that of Héctor Casique Fernández, who was
tortured not once but on various occasions, including during an episode in
2013, where he was tortured for 30 hours under the custody of the judicial
police of Quintana Roo.
Héctor had a public row with the Cancun-based Director of the Judicial Police
of Quintana Roo — a southeastern state located on Mexico’s Caribbean region — after
he had seemingly refused to reimburse Héctor US$4,100 (£3,255) which he had paid
as an official prerequisite to be granted a full-time upper-level police role.
Instead, the local authorities framed him, and accused him of a crime that
had taken place on 14 March 2013 in Cancun that he did not commit.
They arrested him on 16 March 2013 and then accused him of leading an
attack against local taxi union leaders that were drinking at a bar called La
Sirenita (The Little Mermaid) in Cancun. Seven of the taxi unionists died in
the gang-style shooting.
Authorities first accused him of being a member of the drug trafficking Zetas
cartel and later they said he was a gunman for the violent Gulf drug cartel.
The Quintana Roo Attorney General’s office also originally said he was the
material author of the La Sirenita shootout and later changed their statement
accusing him of being the intellectual author. They never presented proof of
either allegation.
What they presented was the confession they had extracted from Héctor
under torture, as well as testimonies of two witnesses who were also tortured and
forced to sign confessions implicating Héctor in the crime. They all later
recanted their testimonies, during the process that led to his acquittal.
Héctor was even tagged by police with an alias, “El Diablo” or “The
Devil”, in order to build a gangster-type image that would make their
fabrication against this innocent family man more credible in the media. Héctor was even tagged by police with an alias, “El Diablo” or “The
Devil”, in order to build a gangster-type image that would make their fabrication
against this innocent family man more credible in the media.
In fact, when presented to local newspapers on 17 March 2013 at the
Attorney General’s office in Cancún as the author of the killings, he was
forced to wear a polo shirt that is typically used by drug traffickers.
What police were unable to hide were the obvious signs of the brutal torture
he had endured. His face was disfigured, his eye was hugely swollen and he had
prominent bruises on his arms.
Héctor would then be sent to jail, where he suffered further torture and
various attempts on his life.
But after years of struggling both inside of jail and in courts and due
to the lack of evidence and the public outcry, he was released on 10 March 2014
only to be immediately returned to jail and tortured once again. He would spend
a further 3.5 years in prison, until finally he was acquitted of all charges on
23 September 2016.
Héctor never lost
hope and in spite of losing vision in one eye and being crippled as a result of
the torture, he tried hard to move forward with his life, while he continued to
receive medical treatment for the injuries he had sustained during his time in
custody.
But, the then Attorney
General and the Secretary of Public Security of Quintana Roo continued to carry
out acts of intimidation and to threaten him as well as his family, forcing his
family to file a formal complaint with the Attorney General of México and to
request precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights, supported by human rights organisation REDRESS.
As it is customary, these frantic efforts of Héctor’s
family to protect his life ultimately could not stop his murder. As his family
was about to present a formal complaint before the Inter-American Commission,
he and a friend were executed in broad daylight in a bar in Cancún on 8 June
2017 as they were having lunch. Hours earlier he had attended a scheduled
hearing at the Attorney General’s Office in Cancún. The UN Office for the High
Commissioner of Human Rights in Mexico immediately condemned his murder and
called on the authorities to promptly investigate his death.
Even when it was reported by local newspapers that
Héctor had been murdered by “members of organised crime”, for his family it was
clear that the responsibility for Héctor’s murder lies specifically and
exclusively with the Mexican authorities.