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On January 26, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), in the voice of its president, Rosario Piedra Ibarra, submitted its 2025 activities report to the Permanent Commission of the Congress of the Union. As expected, his appearance took place under the shadow of the institutional weakening and polarization that have characterized a CNDH extremely attached to the federal government. In the context of the conditions of delegitimization and loss of autonomy of this organization, the report presented has only revived the need to put in focus the multiple doubts and debts of this legally autonomous organization in the face of the real needs of the victims in our country and of the, today perhaps more urgent than ever, strengthening of the human rights agenda.
On the occasion of the report, Rosario Piedra boasted the following figures for the last year of work: 238,917 people served, 156 ordinary or particular recommendations were issued and 29 recommendations for serious human rights violations, 87 unconstitutionality actions were promoted, 23 precautionary measures were issued and 278 supervision visits to penitentiary centers were carried out. He also maintained that between 2020 and 2024, a sustained reduction in complaints about serious violations associated with periods of structural violence in the past was observed, and that human rights violations in general are on the decline, since the acts allegedly violating human rights reported in CNDH complaint files were reduced by 13.3 percent at the federal level and 8.1 percent at the local level.
The narrative that accompanied the presentation of figures was consistent with the communication pattern of the CNDH in recent years, characterized by open defense of the governments of the Fourth Transformation. Thus, Rosario Piedra affirmed that the commission under her charge has prioritized preventive actions to avoid human rights violations and has stopped serving the whims or interested agendas of actors or political parties.
However, it is necessary to question, beyond numbers and speeches, what is the true contribution of the CNDH in the vindication of the rights of victims in Mexico, who are experiencing a critical moment and do not stop multiplying in increasingly larger territories of our geography, overshadowed by macrocriminality, violence and impunity. In such a situation we must remember, for example, that the CNDH itself has issued positions in favor of decisions openly contrary to what is established by international human rights instruments, such as informal preventive detention, the strengthening of the National Guard and the militarization of the country’s public life.
In this sense, the decrease in complaints associated with acts committed in the present administration, which is presumed to be an achievement, in fact is the expression of having turned our backs on the current victims by ignoring the other forms of violence that continue to worsen in our environment, such as the disappearance of people and the number of massacres and violent events with a high component of cruelty that continues to increase and of which the news media report daily.
Therefore, it is pertinent to question whether the recorded decrease in violating acts in the current six-year term is due to the true improvement in the human rights situation or the product of a bias in the recording of violations; bias that deepens the enormous gap between the victims and the commission. This is especially notable when we contrast the statement in which, in her report, Rosario Piedra claims to have not received complaints against federal authorities for direct acts of forced disappearance, limiting herself to recording complaints for omissions in the investigation and search work.
Far from giving up on the CNDH, it is necessary to critically question its actions, putting the victims and the human rights perspective at the center and distancing ourselves from questions related to some of the partisan sides that contribute little to a serious discussion of the role of the CNDH. The search for an effective non-jurisdictional system of protection of human rights may involve a review of the powers and attributions of the commission, as well as the binding nature of its recommendations, as intended, but as long as authentic autonomy and impartiality of the organization is guaranteed in the context of a serious process of institutional strengthening, conditions that, by the way, are not those that prevail today.
Faced with the bloody reality that we live in Mexico and in the face of the continuous overstretching of the institutions to care for victims of multiple human rights violations, it is necessary to endorse the importance of a strong and competent institutional framework, and not the continuity of the process of institutional weakening that the CNDH disguises in its report as a sign of austerity. The CNDH will truly be of the people when it assumes its role as a dam against abuses of public power and puts the victims and the protection of their rights at the center.
