Mexico: Human rights defenders under attack, UN warns

Gustavo de la Rosa, head of the Ciudad Juárez office of the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission in northern Mexico, was forced to flee to El Paso, across the border in the United States, and take refuge there for nearly a month, because of death threats related to his work. De la Rosa's case is an example of the perilous situation faced by human rights activists in this country, according to a report by the Mexico Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) presented Tuesday in Mexico City. The report, titled "Defender los derechos humanos: entre el compromiso y el riesgo" (Defending Human Rights: Caught Between Commitment and Risk) says the OHCHR found 128 cases of aggression against activists between January 2006 and August 2009, 10 of which resulted in murder, and received 54 complaints of attacks nationwide. "Commitment and risk: this is the situation human rights defenders work in," said Alberto Brunori, the head of the Mexico office of the OHCHR, at the Mexico City presentation of the 50-page report on the situation of human rights defenders.