The PAN denounces to the IACHR “human rights violations” by the Mexican government during the march called by Generation Z

This Wednesday, the National Action Party (PAN) denounced the government of Mexico before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington for the behavior of the authorities during the marches called by Generation Z on November 15. “(We come) to report on human rights violations, repression, police brutality, arbitrary arrests and the Black Bloc’s relations with the government of Mexico,” MP Jorge Triana said in a video shared on the opposition formation’s networks.

PAN deputies specified that in their petition to the IACHR they asked for three main points: a hearing in the next session period to analyze what happened on November 15; Claudia Sheinbaum’s request to the government to launch an investigation on site; and the launch of a permanent monitoring mechanism to ensure that “the cornerstone of democracy, which is freedom of expression, persists” in Mexico.

The opposition party’s statements in the United States come just hours after President Sheinbaum attacked the PAN’s decision in her daily briefing, which she linked to the interventionist position promoted by Washington to stop cartel violence. “Here we continue to talk about the defense of the sovereignty and the decision of the people over their rulers and that they do not come from abroad to tell us what should or should not be done”, explained the president.

Sheinbaum also posed a question to the media in attendance: “What do you think about a leader, a legislator, an opposition party who almost no longer has popular support in Mexico and who goes abroad, to the United States, to Washington, to denounce the Mexican government?” The president also stressed that the violence during the march must continue to be investigated in Mexico. “Continue to investigate – I have already asked – what the violence was like on 15-N, because everything must emerge. The Mexico City Congress played a role, we must investigate who promoted that violence”, he explained.

The deputies rejected Sheinbaum’s accusations (“we are not looking for interference. We are looking for justice”) and assured that they went to Washington due to the lack of responses from Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, which, they assured, “has become a refuge for jobs for the morenists.” In the video they also specified that they do not want to accuse a specific person, but rather to denounce those responsible for the violent acts during the Generation Z march.

According to official data, the marches called by Generation Z on November 15 mobilized around 17,000 protesters. A figure that protesters and the opposition rejected, claiming that there were many more. The PAN’s intervention in Washington comes a few days after the controversy fueled by the national leader of the governing Morena party, Luisa María Alcalde, who linked the conservative party to one of the organizers of the Generation Z march, Edson Andrade. Alcalde’s publication specifies that the young man was hired last February for 2.1 million pesos for a year to manage the party’s networks. “What a coincidence, this after Jorge Romero Herrera himself (the president of the PAN) underlined that the opposition only lacks violence,” he quipped in his profile.

The accusations against Andrade aimed to strengthen the position of Morena, who from the beginning of the appeal signed the connection of the protests with the financing of opposition parties and businessmen such as the controversial Ricardo Salinas Pliego, a position rejected by the protesters.