Prof. Francisco Rivera, Director of Santa Clara Law’s International Human Rights Clinic, joined dozens of leading human rights experts in a letter urging Mexican President to increase efforts to determine the whereabouts of 43 forcibly disappeared students from Ayotzinapa. The letter can be read in English here and in Spanish here.
A recent report by an international panel of independent experts, appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights through an agreement between the Mexican government and the students’ families and representatives, exposed grave procedural errors in the government’s investigation, including mishandled evidence and omitted testimonies. The group’s findings did not substantiate the federal Attorney General’s Office’s conclusions about the motive or methods of the crimes; on the contrary, the independent experts concluded that crucial aspects of the official hypothesis were scientifically impossible.
Considering the report’s worrying findings, this letter urges President Peña Nieto to implement all of the expert’s recommendations for the case. The letter urges the Mexican government to determine the whereabouts of the students, open new lines of investigation, interview members of the Mexican army who may have played a part in the crimes, guarantee quality and sustained attention to the victims, and resolve the issue of enforced disappearances in Mexico more broadly.
The letter also supports the victims’ families’ call for the mandate of the independent experts’ group to be extended for as long as necessary, keeping in mind that the government’s obligation is to clarify what happened to the disappeared students and to discover where they are, a task for which the continued participation of this group is crucial.
The signatories will continue to monitor the case of the Ayotzinapa students.
