Human Rights Defender: Digna Ochoa y Plácido

One of the foremost human rights lawyers in Mexico, Digna Ochoa y Plácido, was shot dead in her office on October 19, 2001. Amnesty International strongly condemned her murder and demanded that President Vicente Fox immediately undertake a thorough and impartial investigation into her death.

Digna Ochoa was a leading human rights lawyer who won international awards in recognition of her human rights work. She had worked for many years on cases in which public officials, including members of the Offices of the Attorney General and the armed forces, had been implicated in serious human rights violations.

Ochoa’s father was a union leader in a sugar factory in Veracruz, Mexico. Ochoa began to study law after hearing that her father and his friends needed more lawyers. Her father was unjustly jailed for over a year and then was “disappeared.”

Ochoa worked as a prosecutor in the Attorney General’s office but left because of the corruption she saw in the system. She opened an office with other lawyers and began to do defense work. Her first case involved the illegal detention and torture of several peasants by judicial police. As she pursued the case, the police harassed her and sent death threats . Ochoa was kidnapped and “disappeared.” She endured a month of torture, escaped and hid for another month. Finally, her fellow lawyers, most of whom were women, filed a criminal complaint on her behalf. But, for her safety and that of her family, she left Veracruz for Mexico City, where she took a human rights course. In Mexico City, she met someone working at PRODH (Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Centre) and began working with Centro PRODH in December 1988.

Ochoa had taken on some of Mexico’s most controversial cases, including defense of alleged members of the Zapatista insurgency in Chiapas, and the defense of Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, anti-logging environmentalists. AIUSA’s Just Earth Program on Environment and Human Rights had taken up a campaign for the immediate release of Montiel and Cabrera. (Note: Mr. Montiel and Mr. Cabrera were released on 8 November 2001.)

Featured in Speak Truth to Power, a recent book by Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, Digna Ochoa said, “It’s injustice that motivates us to do something, to take risks, knowing that if we don’t, things will remain the same... Something that I discovered is that the police and soldiers are used to their superiors shouting at them, and they’re used to being mistreated. So when they run into a woman, otherwise insignificant to them, who demands things of them and shouts at them in an authoritarian way, they are paralyzed. And we get results.”

In August 1999, after she began work on the Montiel and Cabrera case, Digna Ochoa was forced into a car in Mexico City by two unknown men and punched in the stomach. She was later released, but warned she would be killed if she reported the attack. In September 1999, PRODH received three separate letters containing death threats. Attached to one of the threats was one of Digna Ochoa’s business cards, supposedly stolen when she was abducted. On 28 October 1999, three unidentified men entered Digna Ochoa’s house, blindfolded her and interrogated her for several hours about members of the PRODH and members of armed opposition groups operating in Guerrero and Chiapas. The men tied Digna Ochoa to her bed and locked her in a room with an open gas canister. After they left she managed to set herself free. The same night the offices of the PRODH were broken into and searched. Another threat was left behind.

None of these incidents were properly investigated. Amnesty International believes that if the previous and current Mexican authorities had taken the appropriate action to ensure an exhaustive and independent investigation of these incidents the killing of Digna Ochoa could have been averted. However, the investigation by the Offices of the Attorney General, which is responsible for all judicial investigations in Mexico, was unduly slow and cumbersome. Although the authorities provided police protection for Digna Ochoa and members of the PRODH, they failed in their responsibility to bring those responsible to justice and to send a clear message that such attacks on those who defend human rights would not be tolerated.

The determination of her persecutors finally prevailed. On 19 October, 2001, Digna Ochoa’s body was found in a legal office in Mexico City. The killers left a death threat warning other human rights defenders from the PRODH, that they would meet a similar fate, if they continued their human rights work. Those who worked with Digna Ochoa are now in grave danger. At particular risk are human rights lawyers Pilar Noriega and Barbara Zamora, who worked with her on very high-profile cases.

Digna Ochoa and members of the PRODH have worked on cases of serious human rights violations in which public officials have been implicated, including members of the Offices of the Attorney General and the military. The threat left by Digna Ochoa’s killers leaves no doubt that Digna Ochoa was killed because of her human rights work. Her killing is the act of those seeking to evade prosecution by silencing human rights defenders who expose the perpetrators of human rights violations and insist that the authorities ensure they are brought to justice.

The murder of Digna Ochoa has sent shock waves through Mexican society. It is more than 10 years since such a high-profile human rights activist has been murdered for their work. President Fox’s administration, which came to power after over 70 years of one-party rule, has pledged to end impunity and radically improve Mexico’s human rights situation. Digna Ochoa’s murder and the death threat that goes with it, demonstrate that the authorities have failed to deliver real improvements. Digna Ochoa’s murder must not remain a demonstration of the confidence her murderers have, that they will never be brought to justice.

Please join us in demanding justice for Digna Ochoa by participating in AI’s Urgent Action on her case.

You can either write your own letter to the following address:

Lic. Vicente Fox Quesada / Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos / Residencia Oficial de “Los Pinos” / Col. San Miguel Chapultepec / México D.F., C.P. 11850, MÉXICO

Or you can print and send out the letter below. (copy and paste it to your word processing program)

If you choose to write your own letter, please read the guidelines below. The first and most important rule is “Always be polite”.
letter writing guide

Please do not write after 20 December 2001. If you receive an answer to your letter, please e-mail the author of this article.

Sample letter:

Lic. Vicente Fox Quesada
Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Residencia Oficial de “Los Pinos”
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec
México D.F., C.P. 11850, MÉXICO

Dear Mr. President:

I was saddened to read of the killing of human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa on 19 October in Mexico City. I hope that the authorities will initiate an exhaustive and independent investigation, taking all the necessary measures to ensure the preservation of vital evidence that could lead to the identification of those responsible for the killing of Digna Ochoa.

A note left by the killers threatened her colleagues. I am concerned for the safety of members of the PRODH and human rights lawyers who worked with Digna Ochoa and urge the authorities to adopt the necessary protection measures in accordance with the wishes of human rights defenders.

The international community will be closely monitoring progress on the judicial investigation into the killing of Digna Ochoa to ensure that the investigation is conducted in accordance with principles stipulated in international human rights standards, to ensure those responsible are brought to justice, and that comprehensive steps are taken to end attacks and harassment of human rights defenders in Mexico.

Sincerely,