Carina Dominguez
ICT
Though distinct culturally, the world’s Indigenous people have plenty in common when it comes to human rights abuses.
International Day of the World’s Indigenous People is meant to promote human rights globally. It’s a time to shed an important light on the defenders who have paid the ultimate price, or close to it.
In 1994 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution to observe International Day of the World’s Indigenous People every year on Aug. 9 to encourage people to support and protect Indigenous rights.
On this International Day of the World’s Indigenous People global human rights organizations are calling for the immediate release of all Indigenous land defenders including Kenia Inés Hernández Montalván.
The killing of Indigenous people, land and environmental defenders is a chillingly common occurrence in Latin America, and Mexico is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for activists, according to CIVICUS, a global civil rights group that has long been concerned about gender-based violence in the country, as vicious attacks against Mexican women journalists, human rights defenders and land campaigners continue unabated.
Hernández is an Afro-Indigenous attorney from Mexico and is currently held in a maximum security prison on questionable charges and her attorney says she’s being targeted for being a vocal human rights organizer, advocating for the improvement of the economic and political situations of Mexico’s marginalized communities.
Global Witness is a nonprofit organization that’s been investigating environmental and human rights abuses, linking natural resource extraction with widespread attacks and killings. A September 2021 report, found that 2020 had been the worst year on record with more than half of the attacks taking place in three countries: Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines.
Hernández knows this reality all too well. The story about her political persecution begins with an attorney named Arnulfo Cerón Soriano, who went missing in 2019.
Harassed, detained, murdered: The fight for Indigenous rights
Hernández is Ñomadaa, also known as the Amuzgo people who live primarily along Guerrero and Oaxaca. Cerón was also an attorney and he was from the Naua people, of the region of La Montaña, Guerrero.
Hernández is a co-founder of the National Movement for the Freedom of Political Prisoners, a group Cerón was also involved with and both had been living in Guerrero.
Cerón was also involved with several groups and organized the communities of the region in the defense of human rights. He went missing on Oct. 11, 2019 on his way to a speaking event.
Authorities were slow to respond to the missing person report, galvanizing Hernández and others into action to demand a proper investigation and search.
She peacefully participated in demonstrations that demanded the safe return of Cerón. Prior to that she had already been advocating for the unjustly imprisoned, women’s rights, land rights and Indigenous rights as a coordinator with another group, Colectivo Zapata Vive.
All of this led to the criminalization and arbitrary detention of Hernández, international human rights groups say.
According to Frontline Defenders, it wasn’t until the public pressure mounted that the authorities searched for Cerón.
His body was found on Nov. 20, 2019 in the “El Aguaje” colony in Tlapa, Guerrero under several tons of soil and according to Antonio Lara Duque, who represents Hernández and is a human rights lawyer, there was evidence that he had been buried alive.
Attempts to silence and deter Indigenous human rights advocates
Historically, Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous communities have been some of the most poor in Mexico, with lower rates of education and higher rates of unemployment, but this is particularly true in Guerrero, Lara said.
The state is known for having many social movements, so when Cerón’s disappearance evoked protests, it quickly swelled into demanding more rights and many social organizations were involved.
According to a trial observation report produced by The Clooney Foundation for Justice and the American Bar Association, Hernández’s case amounts to a series of violations of her human rights, subjecting her to unjustified detention, prosecution, and conviction based on flawed evidence.
She was first arrested in June 2020 after peacefully demonstrating with a group at a toll booth, to demand the release of political prisoners – a tactic commonly used by peaceful protesters to put pressure on authorities and companies that use the highways.
A couple accused her of, allegedly, instructing others to rob them of a wallet and cell phone at the toll booth. It’s common for protests to surround toll booths and give cars free passage, while also asking for contributions to support the relevant campaign, according to the report.
Hernandez appeared in court for her arraignment on June 8 on the charge of aggravated robbery, which carries a sentence of up to 18 years in prison and at the hearing Hernández testified that she did not commit the offense.
She further stated that she was arrested with force, that she was not shown an arrest warrant at the time of arrest, and that the authorities had not attempted to summon her to the police station before forcibly arresting her, according to the report.
After receiving communication from the Public Prosecutor’s Office that pretrial detention was not necessary, the judge ordered Hernández’s release on the condition that she not participate in demonstrations at toll booths and not approach the couple.
“(Hernández) has been discriminated against due to her Indigenous Amuzgo heritage and because she is a woman,” Lara stated in a CIVICUS press release. “Her case reveals how the Mexican state will punish anyone who takes a stand and raises their voice. The cruel and unjust imprisonment of (Hernández) is seriously worrying because it reverses decades of hard-won social gains and massively delays the opening-up of democratic space.”
According to the trial observation report, she was arrested again later that year in October. The day Hernández was due to be released on bail in the second aggravated robbery case, she was arrested and detained again, this time on a charge of attacks on public roads and was subsequently transferred to a maximum-security prison, the Federal Center for Social Readaptation in Coatlán del Río, Morelos.
“It is scandalous that an activist who has spent her life campaigning for the protection and promotion of rights should be behind bars in a maximum-security prison,” Lara said. “I urge the Mexican authorities to release Kenia without delay and drop all charges against her. The criminalisation of social protests and the vilification of human rights defenders in Mexico must stop.”
He said Hernández has had a total of 10 criminal cases brought against her. Lara said when they beat one case, new criminal cases are manufactured.
Hernández works with survivors of male violence and relatives of victims of femicide, defends the rights of the unjustly imprisoned, and the rights of people affected by the activities of multinational extraction companies.
Her trials have been riddled with irregularities and the International Federation for Human Rights maintains it’s linked to exploitative multinational extraction companies – an attempt to punish and put an end to the legitimate work she does.
Centuries of colonization separating Indigenous families continues
The maximum security prison Hernández is detained in is 10 hours away from her two children, who are 7 and 9 years old. It’s been torture for the children, who desparately want their mother home.
Lara said they tried to secure a better arrangement for Hernández during her first trial but the judge denied that request.
The judge should have given her priority for a non-custodial sentence or detained her close to home since she’s the main provider for her two children, which would’ve been in alignment with the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners.
However the judge denied the request based on “archaic gender stereotypes,” according to CIVICUS, saying the UN gender perspective did not apply to her because she’s too intelligent and insufficiently submissive.
Oct. 18 will mark her two years in solitary confinement. She gets one hour of sunshine a day. She has received poor quality food, sometimes it is even spoiled. Lara said recently a pipe in her cell broke and she spent three days inside a sewage filled cell, on top of the bed.
Lara said during the first six months of her detainment she had the right to one call a day and now it is one 10 minute call a week, with the prison claiming it’s due to an overpopulation problem.
Since she’s been in prison she’s only been able to see her children, and her parents who are caring for them, three times. They want to visit her more often but it’s far and it’s expensive.
Every time they visit the prison, they have to take a PCR covid test and have to go through a security filter before getting inside. Her team has organized a visit on Sept. 6, where she’ll get to see her parents and children for the fourth time since being detained in maximum security.
Lara said she’s been strong and has maintained her resiliency but it gets hard because of the indefinite separation from her children.
When they had first detained her the prosecutor told Lara if she was to plead guilty her charges would be reduced or she could possibly even be set free. But she didn’t think it was fair to have a criminal record for something she never did and it would have set a very dangerous precedent.
Lara said it was a “very unpleasant and hard decision” for her to make. She’s convinced she has to resist and fight this struggle.
But it’s hard not to fall apart and get down at times after seeing her children, he said. She has told them she’s working and that she has a very demanding and hard job and when they visit her they say, ‘You’ve been working a lot, you have to go back home.’
However, the prosecutor told Lara she can expect two more cases in the coming months.
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