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Mexico’s Disappeared
The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored
Executive Summary
Recommendations
Methodology
Enforced Disappearances
Enforced Disappearances by the Navy
Enforced Disappearances by Local
Police
Enforced Disappearances by Federal
Police
Complicity between Security Forces
and Organized Crime in Disappearances
Investigative Failures
Failure by Authorities to Intervene
During and Immediately Following Abductions
Failure to Immediately Search for
Victims or Open Investigations
Blaming the Victim
Unfounded Presumptions about
Victim’s Whereabouts
Failure to Promptly Track the Victim’s Cell Phone, Bank
Accounts, or Other Immediate Traces
Negligence, Delays, Errors, and
Fabrications
How Failure to Investigate
Contributes Directly to More Disappearances
Prosecutorial Abdication of
Responsibility, Transfers, and Lack of Coordination
Relying on Victims’ Families to
Investigate
Corrupt Investigators and the Loss of
Families’ Trust
Impact on Families of Disappeared
Persons
Relatives of the Disappeared: the Right to Truth and the
Open-Ended Anguish of Not Knowing
Emotional and Psychological Impact
Psychological Impact on Children
Threats, Harassment, and Attacks
Targeting Families of the Disappeared
Economic Impact
PROVÍCTIMA’s
Shortcomings in Assisting Families
A Promising New Approach: the Case of
Nuevo León
“Working Meetings”
between Victims’ Families, Human Rights Defenders, and the State
Prosecutor’s Office
Overcoming Distrust and Strengthening
Investigative Practices
Institutional Reforms
Results from Better Investigations
Remaining Challenges and Shortcomings
An Alternative Approach: the Case of
Coahuila
Failure to Prosecute Enforced
Disappearances and Other Serious Abuses Previously Documented by Human Rights
Watch
Failure of the Federal Government to
Develop National Databases of the Disappeared and Unidentified Remains
The Importance of Registries of the
Disappeared and Unidentified Bodies to Searches and Investigations
Flaws and Delays in Efforts by the
Calderón Government to Develop National Registries
Enforced Disappearances and
Mexico’s Obligations under International Law..
The Crime of Enforced Disappearance
Definition of
“Disappearances”
Obligations to Investigate
Reparations for Victims
Inadequate Domestic Legislation to
Prevent and Punish Enforced Disappearances
Misuse of the Military Justice System
to Prosecute Enforced Disappearances
Downgrading the Crime of Enforced
Disappearance and Lenient Sentences by Military Prosecutors and Judges
Acknowledgments
Annex 1: Cases of Disappearances
Documented by Human Rights Watch.
Methodology for List of
Disappearances
Annex 2: Letter from Human Rights
Watch to Alejandro Poiré Romero, Former Secretary of the
Interior, March 1, 2012
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