UN panel finds Mexico's arrest of organizer Nestora Salgado illegal
UN panel finds Mexico's arrest of organizer Nestora Salgado illegal
Seattle resident Nestora Salgado, who led a citizens’ police force to confront cartels, has been ‘arbitrarily’ detained in Mexico since 2013, the panel ruled
Associated Press in Seattle
Tuesday 2 February 2016 21.24 EST
A United Nations panel has ruled that Mexico’s 2013 arrest and continuing detention of a community police leader was illegal, raising hopes among her supporters she could be freed.
Nestora Salgado is a Seattle-area resident who returned to her native Mexico and led a vigilante-style – but legal – community police force, which mounted patrols to protect residents from cartel operatives.
A dual US-Mexico citizen, Salgado was arrested in August 2013 after people detained by her group alleged they had been kidnapped. A federal judge cleared her of those charges, but a related state case has kept her imprisoned.
The International Human Rights Clinic at Seattle University Law School has been pursuing her case at the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in Geneva, Switzerland, for about two years. In a decision reached in December and communicated to her lawyers on Tuesday, the five-member panel called her arrest arbitrary and said Mexico should not only free her but compensate her for the violation of her human rights.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/02/mexico-arrest-detention-nestora-salgado-illegal-united-nations
