|
Mexican police torture at guadalajara summit Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/world/2741546http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/world/2741546
Aug. 17, 2004, 8:41AM
Torture alleged at Guadalajara summit
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - Police unlawfully detained protesters and even tortured some during a summit of Latin American and European leaders earlier this year in Guadalajara, the National Commission of Human Rights says.
Dozens of people were arrested in May at the summit in Mexico's second largest city after some protesters threw rocks, sticks, signposts and barricades at police guards. A small faction of demonstrators even donned masks and helmets and brandished clubs and slingshots.
Police responded by illegally arresting and holding 73 people -- eight of them foreigners -- according to the human rights commission.
The commission found that 55 of the Guadalajara detainees were subjected to cruel or denigrating treatment, and that 19 were subject to treatment qualifying as torture.
Commission President Jose Luis Soberanes said lawless behavior by protesters does not absolve police of their responsibilities.
"It may well be true that some demonstrators didn't abide by the law," Soberanes said. "The authorities responsible for security and vigilance broke with the principles that the current legislation demands of them."
The commission, which has no binding authority over government agencies, recommended that the governor of Jalisco state and the mayor of Guadalajara investigate police involved in the arrests.
Officials in Guadalajara had hotly denied accusations that activists were mistreated, even holding an awards ceremony for the police.
But the commission report, which was published Monday, found some of the women detained in Guadalajara where forced to remove their clothes and crouch while male police officers opened a door to watch them, Soberanes said.
The evaluation of torture allegations was based on definitions provided by human rights officials at the United Nations, said Raul Plascencia, an inspector for the commission.
"They subjected the detainees to a series of acts of physical suffering with the goal of obtaining information, a confession or to intimidate them or punish them, which is what is defined as torture," Plascencia said.
"In the cases of the foreigners, we only found cruel treatment, not torture," he said.
Some 17 Mexican activists remain under arrest on charges of gang activity, robbery and causing injury.
|
|
