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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2005 
Mexico Ratifies U.N. Protocol On Torture
 Wire services
Mexico City - President Vicente Fox on Wednesday completed the ratification of a United Nations protocol designed to strengthen international efforts to curb torture.
"Today the government of Mexico ratifies its commitment to eradicate torture and all forms of undignified and inhumane treatment, practices that we've always combatted and will continue to combat," Fox said.
Anders Kompass, the representative in Mexico to the U.N. High Commission for Human Rights, said the signing of the protocol was an important step.
He added that Mexico is not an exception when it comes to the use of torture in countries around the world.
"Despite the efforts made ... torture continues to be a widespread practice in the country," said Kompass, referring to a 2003 U.N. study.
But Interior Secretary Santiago Creel declared torture a thing of the past in Mexico.
"Torture was a calling card for those who considered it the paradigm for efficient police work," Creel said. "All of this fortunately is part of the past, of a past that we as Mexicans said goodbye to without looking back."
Human rights groups continue to decry the use of forced confessions by police in Mexico.
Investigations into the deaths of hundreds of women on the northern Mexican border at Ciudad Juárez since 1993 have been marred in the past by confessions apparently extracted under torture.
Under justice system reforms proposed by Fox, confessions would not be admissible as evidence unless they are made directly before a judge. The proposal is among several initiatives stalled in an opposition-dominated Congress.
Mexico's National Human Rights Commission found that 19 people arrested at the summit of Latin American and European leaders in Guadalajara in 2004 were subject to treatment qualifying as torture.
Fox said on Wednesday just one alleged case of torture was reported in the past two years and that it was declared nonexistent.
The protocol to the U.N. convention against torture would create a multinational body able to inspect jails for evidence of inhumane treatment.
The convention requires ratification by 20 states to enter into force. |
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