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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2005 
Death Penalty Officially Abolished
 El Universal
Mexico City – The government formally abolished the last vestiges of the death penalty on Friday, the eve of International Human Rights Day.
President Vicente Fox described as "historic" the constitutional change, which was approved by Congress in June and by a majority of state legislatures in the intervening months, and published Friday in the government´s official gazette.
"Mexico shares the opinion that capital punishment is a violation of human rights," Fox said. "Today, the death penalty has been abolished."
The Mexican legal system has not executed anyone since 1961, and courts usually refuse to extradite suspects to the United States or other countries if there is a chance they could face a death sentence.
Capital punishment was still technically legal, however - at least until Friday, when Article 22 of the Constitution was changed to read: "The death penalty, mutilation ... branding, whipping, beating, and any form of torture ... are prohibited."
Mexico also published Friday a list of measures taken in the last year to safeguard human rights.
A U.N. rights official said that while Mexico has made progress in protecting human rights, torture persists in parts of the country, often by police seeking confessions or bribes.
Torture "continues to be a common practice," said Américo Incalcaterra, the Mexico representative for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, especially in "border states where a lot of people are crossing, many without documents."
Ricardo Sepúlveda, who heads up the Interior Secretariat´s human rights unit, acknowledged torture was still a problem in Mexico, but said it was "more present at the local level than at the federal level." |
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