Human Rights Watch

Mexico is more open than ever, but has not resolved pending human rights issues
By E. Eduardo Castillo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
10:57 a.m. May 17, 2006

MEXICO CITY – President Vicente Fox's government has achieved an unprecedented level of openness during his nearly six years in office, but has failed to resolve lingering human rights problems in Mexico, an international watchdog group said Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch also criticized the candidates who are running for president this year, saying that the theme of human rights “has been totally absent” from their campaigns.

The two major human rights problems Mexico has failed to resolve, according to the report, are alleged abuses by law enforcement authorities – such as torturing suspects to obtain criminal confessions – the alleged massacre of students by government forces in 1968 and 1971, and the killing and forced disappearance of reputed guerrillas during the country's “dirty war” era, from the 1960s to the 1980s.