On Tuesday, 7 October, members of the Municipal Police of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, attempted to evict and violently repressed seven women defenders who are members of the collective Madres en Resistencia Chiapas who were holding a peaceful protest in front of the Chiapas State Public Prosecutor’s Office. One of the women defenders was wounded as a result of the events. Despite the violent attempted eviction, the searching mothers were able to maintain the protest thanks to support from students from the Mactumatzá Rural School.

The seven women defenders had held the protest for two days demanding a meeting with the State Public Prosecutor’s Office and denouncing its policy of lies and deception regarding its obligation to guarantee truth, justice and reparation for victims of murder, femicide and the disappearance of loved ones. The women defenders also expressed their rejection of the political instrumentalization of their image and pain after the Deputy Prosecutor leaked a photograph of a recent meeting between the collective and the Prosecutor. This same public official leaked information from the case file about a femicide that took place on 14 January at the premises of Instituto del Deporte de Chiapas, as a way of revictimizing and discrediting the victim, whose mother is one of the women defenders attacked.

It should be noted that on the first day of the protest, 6 October, there had already been an attack against the women defenders when an official from the Public Prosecutor’s Office “rammed” the car in which they were traveling and hit one of the mothers.

The National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Mexico demands an immediate stop to the attacks against our sister defenders from the collective Madres en Resistencia Chiapas, and that they – and the people from the Mactumatzá Rural School who are supporting them – be guaranteed the free and safe exercise of their right to protest and their right to defend human rights.

We also express our condemnation of the political instrumentalization of the image and pain of the searching mothers, and we urge the Public Prosecutor’s Office to respond immediately and effectively to their demands, starting with holding the Deputy Prosecutor responsible for having leaked sensitive information with the aim of discrediting a legitimate demand for justice, in order to ensure that this kind of revictimizing behavior will not happen again.

Finally, we call on the international community to express solidarity with the collective Madres en Resistencia Chiapas, to publicly recognize their work demanding truth, justice and reparation, and to support their legitimate demands.