JURIST - Paper Chase: Mexico human rights commission denounces military abuses

[JURIST] The Mexican military has committed grave human rights abuses, including the torture, rape and murder of civilians, according to a report [press release] from the Mexican National Human Rights Commission [official website] submitted to the Mexican National Congress. According to Commission President Jorge Luis Soberanes Fernandez, the military committed these offenses while trying to combat drug-related crime committed by gangs in areas near the border of the United States. He attributed the abuses to the lack of training that soldiers receive to prepare them to deal with civilian populations.

According to the Commission's Wednesday report, state agents were also responsible for abuses during the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca [BBC backgrounder; JURIST report], as well as for mistreatment of indigenous people and migrant workers. Soberanes Fernandez also denounced the state's failure to protect journalists and media workers from violence in the past year, citing 84 reports of attacks against journalists in 2007 which included four deaths and three disappearances. Reuters has more.

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