2020

January 3: Beginning of a search process looking for disappeared people in the Tlapa de Comonfort region in La Montaña, with the participation of the National Guard, the Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA), the National Research Commission, and the Guerrero State Attorney’s Office.

January 4: alleged members of an organized crime gang threaten Julian Chepe, general director of Diario Alternativo.

January 8: parents of the 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa and the federal government agree to reinstate the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE) in the investigation of the Ayotzinapa case.

January 13: after different clashes between criminal groups in the municipality of Zirandaro, about 500 people were displaced.

January 24: presentation by the Regional Coordinator of Citizen Authorities-Founding Peoples (CRAC-PF) of 19 minors as new members of the community police in Chilapa.

January 29: Between 100 and 200 residents of Zihuaquio are forcibly displaced following threats from people belonging to an organized crime group.

February 17: spokesmen of the five Houses of Justice of the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities-Community Police (CRAC-PC) denounce a campaign of defamation and disqualification to the community institution. They ask the local congressmen to approve the reform of Law 701 that is included in the “Initiative to reform the law on the rights of indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples of Guerrero”.

February 27: Displaced people from the municipalities of Leonardo Bravo and Zitlala denounce that the federal government has withdrawn the aid it had provided them to pay for their accommodation and food.

March 14: in the framework of the Dialogue with the Afro-Mexican People, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador holds a public event in Cuajinicuilapa, Guerrero. Indigenous and Afro-Mexican residents of the Costa Chica region express that they need real recognition of their rights and new municipalities.

March 17: First legal actions against officers in the Ayotzinapa case. Three suspects involved in acts of torture against those accused of the case of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School who disappeared in Iguala in 2014 are arrested by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR). On March 26^th, they are formally sent to prison.

March 28: A journalist from Proceso magazine receives threats and is the subject of a smear campaign for reporting clashes in the Sierra.

April 2: the Montaña Tlachinollan Human Rights Center and the All Rights for All Network (Red TdT) publish an Urgent Action in favor of Teodomira Rosales and Manuel Olivares defenders from Centro Morelos.

April 16: in the radio program Tlaltoltlapalehuilistli “The Word that Helps”. Abel Barrera Hernandez, director of La Montaña Human Rights Center (Tlachinollan) speaks of the problems faced by the indigenous communities of La Montaña due to the pandemic including the risk of food shortage.

April 20: the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) declares unconstitutional the controversial modifications of Law 701 of Recognition, Rights and Culture of the Indigenous Peoples and Communities of the State of Guerrero due to a lack of prior consultation.

April 20: The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint program of the World Organization against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) expresses concern about threats from armed groups against journalist Ezequiel Flores and human rights defender. Manuel Olivares.

April 24: Murder of the delegate of the Guerrero State Commission for Human Rights (CDHEG), Eliseo Jesús Memije Martínez, as well as of his son in the community of Yetla, municipality of Coyuca de Benítez, in the Costa Grande region.

May 12: the mining leader in opposition to the Media Luna company, Oscar Ontiveros Martinez, is murdered by an armed group in the town of Real de Limon, municipality of Cocula.

May 28: 51 people (out of 605) who work for the El Carrizalillo mine are infected with Covid-19, this after mining was declared an essential activity by the government.

June 6: human rights defender Kenia Ines Hernandez Montalban, a member of the Zapata Vive Collective is detained in the state of Mexico. She is conditionally released on June 11^th.

June 14: The Collective Against Torture and Impunity (CCTI) expresses concern over the death threats against environmental defender Hercilia Castro Balderas.

June 28: the commemoration of the 25^th anniversary of the Aguas Blancas massacre is carried out, maintaining the quest for justice.

July 2: Jose Angel Casarrubias Salgado, alias ‘El Mochomo’, implicated in the case of the forced disappearance of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Normal Rural School is released and detained again.

July 7: the Special Unit for the Ayotzinapa Case of the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) announces that they have identified the student teacher Christian Alfonso Rodriguez Telumbre, one of the 43 students victims of forced disappearance in Iguala in September 2014.

July 8: arrest of two agents attached to the federal ministerial police, presumed responsible for acts of torture in the Ayotzinapa case. Extradition proceedings against Tomás Zerón, former director of the PGR investigative agency, linked to the case, have also started.

July 12: the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) denounces the injustices and armed attacks, even deaths, that the promoters and communities of the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ) face.

July 17: residents of Alacatlatzala denounce extortion by members of the ministerial police, in the High Mountain of the state.

August 2: Murder of journalist Pablo Morrugares Parraguirre and his security guard in Iguala.

August 4: shootings against the offices of the newspaper Diario de Iguala by unknown persons.

August 12: the Undersecretary of Human Rights, Migration and Population of the Interior, Alejandro Encinas, receives more than 110,000 signatures of people who demand justice in the case of the disappearance and murder of the human rights defender Arnulfo Cerón.

September 2: members of various groups that make up the Guerrero Front for our Disappeared march in Chilpancingo to demand truth, justice and reparation for damages from the federal and state governments in the cases of more than 600 missing persons in the state.

September 3: Ejidatarios of El Carrizalillo close the Los Filos mine and announce the cancellation of the agreement they had with Leagold Mining Corporation and its subsidiary Equinox Gold; they ask President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador not to intervene in the community’s negotiations with the Canadian mining company.

September 22: the Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA) denounces the “act of provocation” that constituted the presence of the head of the Guerrero State Prosecutor’s Office and representatives of Los Filos mining despite the fact that access to the mine is still blocked.

September 26: six years after the disappearance of the 43 students of the Ayotzinapa, the President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and the Undersecretary for Human Rights, Alejandro Encinas , present a report on the progress of the case.

September 28: relatives of prisoners demonstrate in front of the prison located in Las Cruces, Acapulco, and demand the dismissal of its director, Justo Jiménez Loeza.

October 1: A hearing is organized to follow and supervise the judgments of Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantús, rendered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2010. Failure to comply with said sentence by the Mexican state is highlighted.

October 11: a year after the disappearance and subsequent murder of human rights defender and leader of the La Montaña Popular Front (FPM) Arnulfo Ceron, hundreds of people march in Tlapa de Comonfort to demand justice in the case.

October 15: Relatives of social activists Bernardo Ranferi Hernández Acevedo and Rocío Mesino Mesino demonstrate outside the facilities of the Attorney General’s Office (FGE) in Chilpancingo to demand justice and punishment for the material and intellectual perpetrators of their murders.

October 19: Detention for the second time of the human rights defender Kenia Hernandez by members of the Federal Police and the National Guard without an arrest warrant and without having previously identified themselves.

October 20: Demonstration demanding an end to violence against women after the murder of 13-year-old Ayelin Icaze, who was found dead the previous day in Tixtla.

November 5: Murder of the environmental activist Juan Aquino Gonzalez, a resident of the community of Papalutla, municipality of Copalillo where he administered an ecotourism park owned by indigenous people.

November 13: Detention of a soldier linked to the case of the 43 missing from Ayotzinapa, José Martínez Crespo, accused of organized crime, homicide and enforced disappearance.

November 24: The Consultative Assembly of the National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination (Conapred) calls on the National Commission for Minimum Wages (Conasami) to set a minimum wage for agricultural workers.

December 1^st: the judge of the Second District of Federal Criminal Proceedings in the State of Mexico issuea the formal prison order against Jose Angel Casarrubias Salgado, known as “El Mochomo”, for his alleged participation in the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa case.

December 7: The Tlachinollan Human Rights Center presents its XXVI report entitled “Like a Night Without Stars” concerning its activities during the period September 2019-August 2020.

December 20: four Nahua indigenous people who belonged to the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ) and the Peasant Organization of the Sierra del Sur (OCSS) announced are murdered on the federal Chilapa-Tlapa highway.