(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN is deeply concerned by the Mexican government’s decision to withdraw from Brigadier-General José Francisco Gallardo Rodríguez and his family the protective measures ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (ICHR) in 2001 and ratified a year later on his release from prison. The decision to withhold protection […]
(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN is deeply concerned by the Mexican government’s decision to withdraw from Brigadier-General José Francisco Gallardo Rodríguez and his family the protective measures ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (ICHR) in 2001 and ratified a year later on his release from prison.
The decision to withhold protection from General Gallardo as of 16 September 2004 has been taken despite the fact that he has made official complaints regarding death threats he asserts he continues to receive by telephone. The government claims that Gallardo has invented the threats despite the fact that the Federal District Prosecutor’s Office (Procuraduría del Distrito Federal) has been able to trace calls made to Gallardo’s home in Mexico City back to the Mexican government’s National Defence Secretariat (Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional), a body the general believes would be a likely source of death threats.
Gallardo started receiving threats just a few hours after his release in February 2002. As a result, the Mexican government provided the family with bodyguards for the following 12 months. The general claims that since then he has been pressured by the Interior Ministry’s Office (Secretaría de Gobernación) to accept the withdrawal of the protective measures ordered by the ICHR in exchange for medical insurance, a mobile phone and close-circuit cameras around his home.
