Safety and human dignity for migrants

The Human Rights Center Fray Bartolomé (Frayba) joint forces with the organization Mesoamerican Voices, Action with Migrant Peoples (Mesoamerican Voices) to organize the forum "Life and Memory of Our Peoples: Festival of the Word", with exhibitions on the problem's that migrants face in Mexico. We consider this important because when visibility decreases, the migrant's vulnerability increases.

The Forum served as a platform for organizations working with migrants in the North and South of Mexico. There were organizations present working with migrants or with families of migrants who have disappeared, like United Forces for Our Disappeared in Coahuila and Mesoamerican Voices. Also present was CIMICH, a grassroots organization working directly with migrants and families of migrants who have returned or who were deported. Organizations that work in Chiapas assisting migrant caravans in the Southern states of Mexico explained the current situation, one that is getting bleaker, now that Mexico has send 6,000 National Guard agents to the Mexican - Guatemalan border to stop migration.

Moreover, as part of the project to improve the safety and human dignity for migrants, Frayba has sent private interventions to the responsible authorities to attend the needs of migrants passing through Mexico.

Within the project Safety and Human Dignity for Migrants, the Human Rights Center Frayba accompanied Roberto Carlos Ruiz, a migrant from Honduras. Roberto is a victim of torture and was wrongfully detained for over five years.

The first time Roberto left Honduras due to the conditions of poverty in which he lived, was in 1994 when he was twelve years old. On his third journey he decided to stay in Chiapas, Mexico, where he formed a family. He has a son of 10 and a daughter of 5 years old. To provide for his family he worked as a fisherman. In May 2013 though, due to the difficult economic conditions his family faced, he decided to leave once again to the United States. He was waiting to travel on the rooftop of a train northwards, when people dressed in civilian clothes and armed with machine guns, arrested him, along with 60 other migrants. He was taken to a safe house where he was tortured and charged with theft. Later that day he was transferred to the Arriaga Municipal Police station, where he was tortured again. He remained there for four days; due to the beatings he received, he could not eat and vomited blood. In these conditions he was imprisoned and later sentenced to seven years of prison.

Ever since Roberto has maintained a constant struggle to obtain his freedom; through legal mechanisms and two hunger strikes, three times he stitched his lips while on hunger strike. His Mexican wife, Patricia Díaz Moreno, who works collecting iron and other materials in a garbage dump to support their two children, has also repeatedly demanded Roberto´s release.

Frayba has sought his immediate release, working together with other organizations, denouncing that the sentence of Roberto ignored the acts of torture, as well as violations of due process and the lack of consular assistance. During his hunger strikes we denounced the risk to Roberto's health and physical and psychological integrity.

Roberto was finally released after serving 5 years as an unjust prisoner in Chiapas. The struggle to grant him a humanitarian visa to allow him to be in Mexico with his wife and two minor children of Mexican nationality continues.

Links:

• We disseminate information about Roberto
• We disseminate information about the problem's migrants face
• We seek solidarity for migrants