In February 2017, ProtectDefenders.eu supported an international advocacy, outreach and solidarity mission in Mexico, carried out by OMCT in the framework of the Observatory. The mission was conducted in order to seek the release of human rights defenders Damián Gallardo Martínez, Enrique Guerrero Aviña and Librado Baños Rodríguez, who have been victims of arbitrary detention, criminalization, torture and ill-treatment for three years and a half, despite UN recommendations.
The mission delegation could visit the three defenders in prison, and met with numerous civil society representatives from across the whole State of Oaxaca as well as official representatives in Oaxaca and Mexico City. In addition to addressing the pattern of arbitrary detention of human rights defenders in Mexico, the mission also noted the lack of guarantees for human rights defence in the State of Oaxaca.
