On the eve of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s state visit to Britain, Amnesty International will stage a ‘hard-hitting’ act of creative protest to highlight Mexican police and security officials’ complicity in organized crime and torture.
Amnesty campaigners will
gather outside the Mexican Embassy on Monday, March 2, in a bid
to address what they warn is a Mexican human rights
epidemic.
The political theater entails the bashing open of a 3-meter-wide,
brightly colored piñata. A staple of traditional Mexican culture,
the vessels are usually made from pottery, cloth or papier-mâché
and contain sweets.
Amnesty’s piñata, however, will contain a petition calling upon
Peña Nieto to address what they describe as Mexico’s dire human
rights record. They will present the petition to the embassy.
Mexico’s President Nieto is in the UK next week. Send a strong
message: he must #stoptorturehttp://t.co/5uxJwKdRRdpic.twitter.com/UU14AFCXZo
— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) February
26, 2015
The piñata will take the form of a bright yellow star, adorned
with tassels and a provocative message declaring: “Stop
torture in Mexico.”
The star will be broken open by a blindfolded campaigner. The
blindfold will bear the caption: “President Peña Nieto: Don’t
turn a blind eye to torture.”
Amnesty International says torture is “out of control”
in Mexico, with the number of reported cases increasing six-fold
since 2005.
Soaring levels of torture coincide with the Latin American
state’s “war on drugs,” which has culminated in 100,000
deaths and over 22,000 disappearances in the past nine years.
In advance of Peña Nieto’s trip to Britain, Amnesty has written
to Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick
Clegg, both of whom are due to meet with the Mexican president.
The letter calls specifically upon the UK government to address
Mexico’s human rights abuses at bilateral talks during Peña
Nieto’s stay.
Amnesty UK official Tom Davies said Nieto’s police and security
officials “have serious blood on their hands.”
He said swathes of public officials in Mexico are embroiled in
drug cartel criminality and torture, and the state is in
desperate need of reform.
Davies, who heads Amnesty UK’s Stop Torture campaign, warned the
British government not to pass over Mexico’s torture record
“in silence” during the talks.
“Rolling out the red carpet mustn’t mean brushing Mexico’s
dreadful human rights record under the very same carpet,” he
said.