Iván Evair Saldaña
La Jornada newspaper
Tuesday, April 15, 2025, p. 7
The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) will discuss in the following weeks a project that recognizes and defines the actions of the Judicial Power of the Federation (PJF) to contribute to comply with the judgment of the Inter -American Court of Human Rights (Coridh) on the case of women victims of sexual torture in Atenco against Mexico
issued on November 28, 2018, which must also be followed by the Executive Power and other authorities of the Mexican State.
According to judicial sources, the full project is expected to discuss the project – not publicly – of Minister Alberto Pérez Dayán on April 28, which proposes to mark the criteria that the Mexican courts and courts must take to guarantee the repair of the damage to 11 women victims that recognized the judgment of the Coridh.
Likewise, the Court would order to inform its decision to the plenary session of the Federal Judiciary Council and President Claudia Sheinbaum to take joint actions.
The Atenco Case is considered one of the most emblematic in terms of human rights violations against women in Mexico. It was perpetrated in May 2006, when federal and state police repressed with excessive use of force a manifestation of florists and members of the Front of Peoples in Defense of the Earth that blocked the dairy-texcoco road.
There were two young civilians and 217 people were arrested, many of whom denounced acts of torture. Of the apprehended, 26 women denounced having been victims of sexual abuse when entering the Santiaguito Social Prevention and Readaptation Center, in Almoloya de Juárez.
According to their testimonies, they were incommunicado and the ministerial agents took advantage of their vulnerability situation to sexually assault them, hit them and threaten them with death, as well as hurting their families.
Despite the complaints, the alleged perpetrators were not sanctioned. In total, 22 police officers were indicated, but all were acquitted, including those accused of sexual assaults.
Faced with impunity, 11 women took the case before the Inter -American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which in 2016 sent it to the Coridh due to lack of justice in Mexico.
In November 2018, he condemned the Mexican State for arbitrary arrests, sexual, physical and psychological torture, as well as the lack of access to justice. As part of the sentence, he ordered to investigate and sanction all those responsible, including the higher controls, provide medical and psychological care to the victims, strengthen the mechanisms for the prevention of sexual torture and create an independent observatory on the use of force.
The SCJN also is pending to address another judgment of the Coridh: the case García Rodríguez and another against Mexico
in relation to its execution within the national legal order. In this ruling, the State’s international responsibility for the detention, processing and deprivation of the liberty of Daniel García Rodríguez and Reyes Alpízar Ortiz was declared.
