By: José Carlos Moreno | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat
October 8, 2015— Just two days ago in Cuernavaca, the Human Rights
Commission of the State of Morelos (CDHEM) stated that the figure of the Mando
Único in the state, relentlessly pushed by the state government despite its low
popularity- according to a survey during the past two weeks in all the municipalities
of Morelos, which yesterday revealed the results indicating that only 1% of
respondents approved the continuation of the measure while 99% condemn it, is
the body that most violates human rights in the state.
(Valor: Mando Único (Single Command) is the unifying of municipal and
state forces.)
This was expressed by the president of the CDHEM, Lucero Ivonne Benítez
Villaseñor, who noted that the Mando Único is the protagonist of most
complaints filed by citizens to the institution in charge, which are mostly
related to the violation of due process, emphasizing arbitrary arrests, torture
during detention, and the fabrication of guilt, and even some police members
have complained about money quotas imposed on them by their superiors.
The president of the CDHEM delivered a report with all the information
to the local congress where it was brought to the Commissioner of Public
Security, Jesús Alberto Capella Ibarra, at a conference described by some media
as evasive, and even ridiculous at times, because in it the commissioner said
that the idea of insecurity in the state is mostly bad “perception” of the
citizens, because, according to him, violence has decreased and it takes quite
some time for this public perception to be corrected.
However, the numbers contradict the version of the report of Commissioner
Capella and exposes another reality: in the first eight months of this year,
there have been 17 cases of torture (just over two cases per month), while in
2014, the figure for the same type of violation was 12, or an increase of 30%
in a few months. It also states that
from 2014 to date, complaints from citizens accumulate to a total of 450.
