The UN denounces epidemic of murders of LGBTI people in Mexico
The Mexico agency of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) condemned the situation through a press release. The agency made references to the cases of Alaska Contreras Ponce, a trans of 25 years, Queen Gay 2018 of the municipality of Martinez de la Torre de Veracruz whom was found murdered, half-naked and with signs of torture and a barbed wire around the neck on 25 July, and Elián Alexis, a young gay person whose body was found in a vacant lot.
Jan Jarab, a local representative of UNHCR, stressed that “in accordance with the international commitments on human rights that Mexico has taken on board, the State has the obligation to protect the rights to life and personal security of LGBTI persons.”
“Additionally, the State has the responsibility to adopt measures to prevent killings, violent attacks and torture motivated by hatred, , and to investigate these crimes quickly and diligently in order to bring those responsible to justice,” he added.
He also called on the authorities to take all measures to counteract homophobic and transphobic attitudes and promote respect for the LGBTI population, especially for those cases that remain unpunished, and warned of “the increase in discourse and actions that constitute threats to the rights of the LGBTI population.”
Similar cases have occurred in other states.
On June 14, in El Olimpo, Michoacán, the corpse of a transgender person was found with a bullet wound to the head.
Two days later, in Manzanillo, Colima, the body of a transgender woman was found in a ditch, and on June 19 in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Nayali Briyith Sánchez, a transgender woman and sex worker from Honduras was murdered in her home.
On June 24, in Yautepec, Morelos, Katty was murdered in a bar. A day later, in Jesús María, Aguascalientes, Alexa Gutiérrez was found dead on the bed of her house, with visible marks of blows.
On July 15, in Toluca, Mexico, in the middle of the street, Chanel was killed close to midnight, when a man approached her to ask for her services and immediately shot her four times in the chest and once at the liver.
A week later, on July 22, Alexa Altamirano, 21, disappeared and was murdered in Silao, Guanajuato, after attending a concert, and on July 24 in Chalco, State of Mexico, the body of a transwoman was found with her face covered with a white plastic bag.
In Yucatan, civil society organizations reported three cases that occurred in July.
The first was that of a male person found in a hotel in the center of Mérida, beaten to death. The second occurred in the municipality of Umán: the victim said before passing away that she had been assaulted because of her sexual orientation. The third happened in Villas de Oriente, where a corpse was found tied up with signs of strangulation.
On August 1, in San Luis Potosí, the Gay Equality Collective San Luis A.C. denounced the murder of a young gay man outside a nightclub at the hands of a group of taxi drivers and the same night, in Culiacán, Sinaloa, the homicide of Joseph García in his home was reported.
IUF Latin American Regional office reproduced an article published on the matter in the magazine Letter S. Please find the original story here.
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