(22 Oct 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
San Andres Larrainzar, Mexico – 21 October 2024
1. People gathered around coffin of murdered priest and activist Marcelo Pérez
2. Pérez’s coffin
3. Mourners crying by coffin ++PART COVERING SHOT 4++
4. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Felipe Arizmendi, cardinal:
"Unfortunately, the country is rotting. We call on the authorities to look for an intelligent way to disarm those armed groups, here and there. They shouldn’t wait for people to file complaints, and people are going to file complaints because their lives are at risk."
5. Various of mourners
STORYLINE:
Hundreds gathered Monday to mourn Catholic priest Marcelo Pérez, an activist for Indigenous people and farm laborers who was killed in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas.
It was a killing that many say was a tragedy foretold, in a state where drug cartels have caused thousands of people to flee their homes.
Mourners gathered in San Andres Larrainzar, near the city of San Cristobal de las Casas, where Pérez was killed on Sunday.
A mass in his honor Monday was held in Spanish and Tzotzil, the Indigenous language he spoke.
Pérez, a leading activist for peace in the violence-torn state, had often received threats, but nonetheless continued to work as a peace activist.
The state prosecutors’ office said Pérez, 50, was shot dead by two gunmen when he was in his van, just after he had finished celebrating Mass.
Human rights advocates said he did not receive the government protection he needed.
While there was no immediate information on the killers, Pérez’s peace and mediation efforts may have angered one of the two drug cartels that are currently fighting for control of Chiapas.
The state is a lucrative route for smuggling both drugs and migrants.
For at least the last two years, the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels have been engaged in bloody turf battles that involve killing whole families, and forcing villagers to take sides in the dispute.
President Claudia Sheinbaum only said that "investigations are being carried out."
Together with continued drug violence in the northern state of Sinaloa, and the army killings of six migrants earlier this month, the killing of Pérez was another embarrassment for the government.
Sheinbaum took office Oct. 1 and has pledged to follow the policy of her predecessor and mentor, former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of not confronting the drug cartels.
The policy has failed to significantly reduce violence.
The U.N. Human Rights Office said Pérez was the seventh human rights activist killed in Mexico so far in 2024.
AP video by Rául Salvador Mendoza
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