Subject: Press Release-Request to the European Union/México Joint Parliamentary Committee

Dear Eurorepresentatives, Mexican and binational professors, students, researchers living in Europe, as well as groups and collective solidarity activists, address to the plenary sessioners of the European Parliament to seek your URGENT intervention before the Human Rights CRISIS being suffered by the people of Mexico. Our petition is based on the principles established in the United Nations Organization´s Declaration on Human Rights; the European Union´s Fundamental Rights Declaration; and in the very terms of the EPA, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement (Global Agreement) signed between the European Union and the Mexican State in the year 1997, which entered into force in 2000 and the 2008 Strategical Partnership Agreement. The social, economic, political and moral crisis the country is facing, violates the Human Rights of its inhabitants, as it is systematic and has reached a critical, desperate point and, as has been pointed out by several national and international organizations. A solid case are recent and painful events of September 26 this year, in which municipal security officers, in complicity with organized crime members controlling that region, skinned off a young student extracting also his eyeballs, killed a total of 6 people and disappeared 43 students from the Rural Normal School “Raúl Isidro Burgos” in Ayotzinapa, Iguala, Guerrero State. This situation is aggravated by the lack of action and immobility of federal authorities to end the nexus between government officers (at various levels of government), law enforcement agents and organized crime gangs. In Iguala, the Town Mayor José Luis Abarca´s criminal history and its links to organized crime was at public knowledge, but none State Authority, from the Attorney General did anything to resolve citizen complaints. José Luis Abarca Velazquez, who is accountable fugitive by now, while the relatives of the missing students have been threatened as they try to mobilize to demand for justice. This form of government shows a serious phenomenon, the loss of limits between the public, private and criminal realms, and it has caused repetitive power abuses and savage acts in different parts of the country. We do not know in Mexico anymore who is protected by the law and the different police corporations. In view of the serious situation we appeal for the intervention of the European Parlament, so that the Human Rights of the mexican people are respected by the mexican government. We do not understand how has the Global Economical Association, Political Concertation and Cooperation Agreement between Mexico and the European Union been possible, being based for its factibility and efficacy on “democratic principles” and on the “respect to the Human Rights”, if the Mexican State has been earlier condemned by international magistrates, due to its direct and indirect involvement in committing crimes against Humanity: murder, imprisonment and many other cruel, inhuman or humiliating actions, groups or associations with an own identity based on political motives, forced disappearance of persons and attacks against Human Rights activists. It is essential pointing out that co-opting of the State by organized crime (including the political parties) has been taking form since year 2000, in spite of power alternancy. Corruption, impunity and torture have never stopped since 2006, when former president Felipe Calderón declared the so-called “War on Drugs”. This has only aggravated the system of corruption and impunity, as well as the Human Rights violation by the state or federal authorities. Violence in Mexico has gained ground to unprecedented limits taking us to a state of emergency for such misruling we are living within. Ayotzinapa and Tlatlaya cases are a clear demonstration that they have exhausted our possibilities to have help and assistance from the interior of the Nation. Thus it is essential that international an endorsement of Human Rights is articulated, severously questioning the Mexican government of Mexico about. Based on the foregoing, we do the following considerations: FIRST: We deeply appreciate the solidarity from the 21 representatives from different parliamentary groups of the European Parliament this October 10 regarding the aggression occurred against Ayotzinapan students in Iguala Guerrero, promoted before Catherine Ashton, “High Representative of the EU Foreign Affairs”, and before Federica Mogherini, “High Representative designated in the EU for Foreign Affairs”, the need to call for the attention of the Mexican Government, in order to manifest: 1. Concern and dismay of the European Parliament for the Human Rights violations in Mexico, which dimension is of an unacceptable extent on the facts against of the Normal Rural “Raúl Isidro Burgos” School located in Ayotzinapa, Iguala, Guerrero State; 2. That before the attempted ratification planned for 2015, of the 2000 Global Agreement and the Strategic Partnership of 2008, it would have to be put on hold and its objectives and planned areas for liberalization should be reviewed; 3. The Mexican State must ensure the effective implementation of Human Rights; and 4. Organized crime must be stopped. SECOND: We also thank European Parliament Commission on Human Rights President Barbara Lochbihler´s expressions in the following terms: 1. “Condemnation” of Ayotzinapa “Raúl Isidro Burgos” Normal Rural School students disappearance and related crimes committed in Iguala, Guerrero; 2. The call for the European Union to demand during the negotiations to renew the Global Agreement between the European countries and the Mexican government until the implementation of Mexican citizen´s safety and Human Rights enforcement gets fulfilled; 3. Recognize that neither the so called “war on drugs” by former president Felipe Calderón, nor the initiatives of the new government of Enrique Peña Nieto declined violence in the country; and 4. To have the conviction that “the events of Iguala are more than a palpable evidence of the government´s inability to arrest offenders, is a shout telling us that It Is Enough!”. THIRD: We thank that the European Parliament in its session on October 15: 1. Discussed the 43 Ayotzinapa´s missing students as an URGENT ISSUE, and 2. Promote to the plenary session to be held on Thursday 23rd.October, in Strasbourg for “Issuing a Resolution” on these facts. FOURTH: We, the signant citizens state that: 1. We share the pain and condemn the persecution, forced disappearance and slaughter of students from the Azotzinapa´s Rural Normal School “Raúl Isidro Burgos” perpetrated in Iguala, Guerrero State. 2. We join the call for justice, and the shout of Ya Basta! against such a daily lived impunity, to the flagrant violation of the most basic Human Rights in our country; we call for: “Not a glimmer of Impunity” which were the words of the president, Enrique Peña Nieto, not left just as in the rhetoric but fulfill its duty to provide peace and security to Mexicans in a climate of unconditional respect for fundamental rights. 3. The municipal, state and federal authorities are accountable. But not only for Ayotzinapa, but for all and all mexicans and all occasions has acted irrationally, disappearing and killing citizens in their right to demand better living conditions, therefore we demand answers to: Where are our colleagues? Why were they executed? Why authorities have not acted in accordance with the recommendations of international law and Human Rights? Links between local government and drug traffickers were of public knowledge, why the federal government did not take any action for its disarticulation? 4. It is disturbing to witness how in the 31 states fitting up the country, crime has imposed its rules with impunity and how, facing the absence of action by the authorities, citizens must organize to ensure their own safety. 5. We demand the enforcement of the Rule of Law to the crimes perpetrated by the Mexican State, making again evident the complicity between police, military and political forces with organized crime in Mexico. 6. We recall that the obligation of all States is to ensure the integrity and the right to life of all its citizens. It is vital that Mexican government show impartiality in the administration of justice and not to run over the right to freedom of speech and expression; to provide security for human rights defenders and truly help the victims or those who report on organized crime; protect journalists who are threatened by criminal groups; bring to trial the political and institutional authorities that promote corruption and get enriched for the crimes they commit; and does not use torture as a means to incriminate innocent citizens. For all the above stated, we ask the European Parliament, as an Institution and symbol of unity and peace both in Europe and in the world, to issue a resolution including: a) Suspension of the process of updating the “Global Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation” between the European Union and the Mexican State, which will take place in 2015, until the Mexican State: a.1 Find and return alive to 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School. a.2 Perpetrators and accomplices, both public authorities and members of organized crime of disappearances and killings of students in Iguala, Guerrero got punished and resignation of governor Angel Aguirre Rivero Helladius is achieved. a.3 Ensure that investigations onto cases of Iguala get carried out with the support of Human Rights instances of both the European Parliament and the European Union. a.4 Ensure a set of reforms for a series of investigations begin to identify which members of Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary are in collusion with organized crime. a.5 Ensure the Human Rights of families of the missing and murdered students, as well as those of all civil society organizations, citizens’ initiatives, Mexican social movements that are both in Mexico and abroad due to lift their voices for all these facts. b) The European Parliament authorize a group of citizens signing this letter to attend the plenary session of the European Parliament scheduled for Thursday 23 October in Strasbourg, France. Allowing also this group to have a meeting with the Commission on Human Rights of the forementioned Parliament. Similarly be present at the hearing of the head of the Mexican Mission to the European Union, Juan José Gómez Camacho before the members of the Delegation to the EU-Mexico Joint Commission. c) To impulse the creation of a Special Committee for Ayotzinapa case. Including in that commission accompanying human rights organizations in Mexico, panels, and both citizen and social initiatives representatives. d) That pursuant to the provisions of the Global Agreement, the European External Action Service, in coordination with the Mexican government and the cooperation of the European Economic and Social Committee, organize the EU-Mexico Civil Society Forum. In this regard we request that the 2015 version of the forum can become a place to review the situation of Human Rights in Mexico. Therefore, we urge you not to miss this historical opportunity you have in your hands, based on your high investiture as representatives, making use of all necessary resources to contribute to an active and forceful action in order to achieve the end of such barbarity against people living in Mexico which yet has cost blood, thousands of missing and/or dead human beings. Mexican government does not cease to be observed in his actions, as we believe that this monitoring should be articulated in an international framework, to never forget and to demand punishment for those responsible for the crimes committed. We do not want more deaths, no more torture, we do not want to disappear today and then appear tomorrow in mass graves! We want the government to respect Human Rights and that no one in our country be afraid to die at the hands of police, military, navy, armed gangs. We do not want to live under the terror and abuse of organized crime groups. We demand a genuine Rule of Law. We want Justice, Respect and Dignity. Justice for Ayotzinapa! We are all Ayotzinapa! Memory against forgetting You took them alive. WE WANT THEM ALIVE! SIGN BELOW⇩ Where are they? Abel García Hernández Abelardo Vázquez Periten Adán Abrajan de la Cruz Alexander Mora Venancio Antonio Santana Maestro Benjamín Ascencio Bautista Carlos Iván Ramírez Villarreal Carlos Lorenzo Hernández Muñoz César Manuel González Hernández Christian Alfonso Rodríguez Telumbre Christian Tomás Colón Garnica Cutberto Ortiz Ramos Dorian González Parral Emiliano Alen Gaspar de la Cruz Everardo Rodríguez Bello Felipe Arnulfo Rosas Giovanni Galindes Guerrero Israel Caballero Sánchez Israel Jacinto Lugardo Jesús Jovany Rodríguez Tlatempa Jonás Trujillo González Jorge Álvarez Nava Jorge Aníbal Cruz Mendoza Jorge Antonio Tizapa Legideño Jorge Luis González Parral José Ángel Campos Cantor José Ángel Navarrete González José Eduardo Bartolo Tlatempa José Luis Luna Torres Joshvani Guerrero de la Cruz Julio César López Patolzin Julio César Ramírez Nava Leonel Castro Abarca Luis Ángel Abarca Carrillo Luis Ángel Francisco Arzola Magdaleno Rubén Lauro Villegas Marcial Pablo Baranda Marco Antonio Gómez Molina Martín Getsemany Sánchez García Mauricio Ortega Valerio Miguel Ángel Hernández Martínez Miguel Ángel Mendoza Zacarías y Saúl Bruno García Where are they?