2021

January 7: the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) publishes the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the construction of the Southern Bypass.

January 23: Fidel Heras Cruz, community defender and president of the Paso de la Reina Ejidal Commissariat is shot to death in La Esperanza.

January 21: The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) issues precautionary measures addressed to different authorities in the state of Oaxaca to guarantee the human rights of three Triqui communities.

January 27: the feminist civil organization Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and Equity Oaxaca (Consorcio Oaxaca) publishes a statement in which it reports on the rise in cases of violence against women in the state.

February 10: various organizations issue a declaration of alert over the possible offensive of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) with the support of the National Guard, which they point out, has committed abuses in different towns of Oaxaca.

February 12: residents of San Dionisio del Mar mobilize to block the access of state and federal officials related to the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec .

February 20: Community authorities of 17 towns in 5 municipalities of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec announce in an assembly that the modernization works of the railway are suspended in the northern area of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec

March 8: Collectives, civil organizations and groups of women defenders demonstrate and ratify the importance of the struggle of women in the defense of the community and regional territories of the state.

March 18: a march is held to demand justice in the case of the murder of MaryCruz Zaragoza, daughter of defender Nicasio Zaragoza.

March 26: Relatives of Claudia Uruchurtu denounce her disappearance after being a victim of repression and abuse of authority by elements of the municipal police of Asunción Nochixtlán.

March 28: Jaime Jimenez Ruiz, a former municipal agent of Paso de la Reina and who was part of the movement for the defense of the Rio Verde, is murdered.

April 14: The British parliament urges the government of Mexico to “conduct a thorough investigation and search” to locate activist Claudia Uruchurtu. Claudia’s sisters have received several death threats, for which the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman of the People of Oaxaca (DDHPO) and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) issued precautionary measures for the family.

April 27: members of the Zapatista Indigenous Agrarian Movement (MAIZ), occupy the offices of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) to demand justice for Bety Cariño and Jyri Jaakkola, activists who were murdered 11 years ago.

April 30: The founder of the news portal “Diálogos Oaxaca” and also a reporter for the newspaper “El Tiempo”, Francisco Augusto Ramírez Padilla, is reported missing.

May 3: Indigenous consultations on the “development poles” of the Interoceanic Corridor begin.

May 9: President Lopez Obrador announces that the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec will be administered by the Secretariat of the Navy of Mexico (SEMAR).

May 14: Lizbeth Victoria Huerta, mayor and candidate of Morena for the municipal presidency of Asunción Nochixtlán, as well as two municipal police officers for their relationship with the forced disappearance of activist Claudia Uruchurtu, are linked to trial.

May 21: three weeks before the elections, Oaxaca is the third state in the country with the most cases of political violence, with 15 attacks registered on candidates in the 2021 electoral process.

May 25: communities of Oaxaca, parts of the Assembly of Indigenous Peoples of the Isthmus in Defense of Land and Territory (APIIDTT) reject the “simulation of consultations indigenous peoples” to impose the installation of industrial parks in the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

June 4: The No to Mining Front for a Future of All pronounces itself against any public consultation process in the Ocotlán Valley, regarding the Environmental Impact Statement (MIA) presented by the Cuzcatlán mining company, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Fortuna Silver Mines.

June 7: A violent election day is recorded in at least six municipalities of the state with burning of ballots, purchase of votes and intimidation of voters resulting in one person dead, one injured and ten arrested.

June 10: the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, asks the Mexican authorities to guarantee the safety of the journalist Soledad Jarquin Edgar.

June 17: reporter Gustavo Sanchez Cabrera is killed in the municipality of Santo Domingo Tehuantepec.

June 20: at an “The Isthmus Is Ours” meeting, the participants express their rejection of the Tehuantepec Isthmus Corredor.

June 21: Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, current PRI coordinator in the Senate of the Republic, appears, before the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) over the Nochixtlan case.

June 29: the feminist group Hijas de la Sandunga, which provides accompaniment to women victims of violence on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, denounces that its members have been victims of harassment and threats.

July 6: Faced with threats of privatization and extractive industries, the Zapotec community of San Antonino Castillo Velasco, in the central valleys of Oaxaca, approves an internal regulation to protect water.

July 22: the Network of Community Defenders of the Peoples of Oaxaca (REDECOM) publishes the statement “ALARMING INCREASE OF AGGRESSIONS AGAINST DEFENDERS IN MEXICO”.

July 22: the No to Mining for a Future of All Front announces that the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) refused the second permit requested by Fortuna Silver Mines (FSM) for its “San Jose II” project.

July 27: the Network of Community Defenders of the Peoples of Oaxaca, REDECOM, and the Council of Peoples United for the Defense of the Rio Verde, COPUDEVER, publish the statement “Six months demanding Justice in Paso de la Reyna” in which they demand justice for their five murdered fellow defenders.

August 17: The Democratic Civic Union of Neighborhoods, Colonies and Communities (UCIDEBACC) denounces that its leader, Antonio Zarate Bernal, was detained.

September 14: José Castillo Castro, defender of land and territory in the Chontal community of Barra de la Cruz, in the municipality of Santiago Astata, is hospitalized after being shot twice.

September 20: Zapotec communities achieve suspension of the Gunaa Sicarú wind project in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

September 26: Fanny Guadalupe, Mixe youth who “confronted lack of attention from authorities” is victim of femicide.

September 27: indigenous Zoque inhabitants of Chimalapas install a blockade on the Pan-American highway to demand “broad and clear information on the current situation of the constitutional controversy against the state of Chiapas.”

October 8: members of the Federal Ministerial Police, in coordination with the National Guard, detain Ayuuk teacher Micaela Valdivieso Joaquin, and her son Ever Muñoz Valdivieso for defending their property from the works carried out as part of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Interoceanic Corridor (CIIT).

October 11: Agrarian and municipal authorities denounce threats during mobilizations against Fortuna Silver.

October 14: Various organizations and groups demonstrate in defense of land and territory; they demand an end to the criminalization for the defense of the territory against the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

October 24: Armed attack in Atatlahuca leaves 7 dead and at least 40 families displaced.

October 28: the indigenous leader Narciso Lopez Vasquez is assassinated in an ambush in Santiago Ixtayutla.

November 8: the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) approves the draft sentence to favor of the defense of Los Chimalapas.

November 9: the Oaxaca General Prosecutor’s Office issues a pink alert for the disappearance of environmentalist Irma Galindo Barrios.

November 13: “The Isthmus Is Ours” denounces dispossession, militarization and violence from Trans-Isthmus Corridor.

November 20: the Oaxacan Assembly in Defense of the Land and Territory, launches the campaign “It’s not Development – It’s Dispossession!”

November 30: Consultations on mining expansion in Oaxaca are rejected.

December 13: The organization Servicios del Pueblo Mixe A.C. publishes a statement expressing its concern about the increase in threats against indigenous territories due to the imposition of megaprojects.