A relative of one of the detainees accused of the Reynosa massacre, who was reported missing, and another relative of an activist from a search collective, who had released the disappearance file, suffered arbitrary detentions in recent days that are linked to the case.
According to a complaint by the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee filed with the Human Rights Commission (CNDH), both were detained for several hours, the first on Sunday and the second on Thursday.
Read: Kidnapping victims are among those accused of attacks in Reynosa, relatives report
Animal Politico had access to the complaint and the identity of the people who were captured and threatened, which are not disseminated so as not to put the victims at risk.
These two accusations of plagiarism are in addition to the one already made by activist Gustavo Azuara Díaz, director of the Collective Foundation of Friends of Rodolfo Torre (CART), who reported having been captured for a few hours after participating in the peace march that took place in Reynosa last Saturday.
The current allegations are linked to the case of two of those arrested and accused of the massacre, whose relatives say they had been kidnapped for months.
Alfonso Margarito Aguilar González, 27, and Ramiro Licea Muñoz, 20, had been missing since May 24 and April 24, respectively.
According to El Universal, relatives of both young men reported that armed men kidnapped them. They did not know anything about them until 24 June, when they were allegedly arrested during an operation in Reynosa in which 18 people were released.
The Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office says they were handed over to the Public Prosecutor’s Office for the crime of “Illegal deprivation of liberty,” as they are accused of holding 18 people in detention. However, the indictment escalated to be singled out for the Reynosa massacre.
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Their case is currently in the hands of a judge, who will have to determine whether to link them to trial next Thursday, July 1. For the time being, their relatives publicly reported that they were tortured and forced to fire a weapon. They point directly to the Special Operations Group (Gopes) of the Public Security Secretariat of the Government of Tamaulipas as responsible for the operation.
Aguilar González and Licea Muñoz were presented as detainees on Thursday 24. On the same day, the first arrest reported by the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee was recorded. This is a relative of an activist from the search collective “Following in Your Footsteps,” who works with the disappeared in Reynosa. The person was captured and harassed for several hours until he was released.
The same thing happened on Sunday with a relative of Alfonso Margarito Aguilar González, who suffered arbitrary detention for several hours.
The committee filed a complaint with the CNDH, the Ministry of the Interior, the Secretariat of Citizen Security and the Presidency to clarify the circumstances of the detention of Aguilar González and Licea Muñoz and to investigate the torture reported by their relatives. In addition, it asks for protection for both, who are currently in prison, and for the members of the collective “Following in your footsteps”.
The investigation into the Reynosa massacre is now in the hands of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), which conducted six searches of homes, including those of the two young men.
The accusations of the families and the human rights group were rejected by the Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Tamaulipas. Sources close to the ministry authorities said that only Aguilar Gonzalez had a report of disappearance, filed by a family member on May 24, two days after armed men stole him from his home.
On June 16, the same family member withdrew the complaint, claiming to have spoken to her brother and to have known that he was well and that he would return home. In his statement, he said his brother had also spoken to his wife.
Regarding the other young man, ministerial sources said that there was no report of disappearance despite the fact that he was abducted by armed subjects during the theft of a vehicle.
Massacre against civilians
Last Saturday, June 19, Mexico suffered a terrible massacre against civilians: a convoy of three vehicles with suspected members of organized crime took to the streets of Reynosa that day and randomly shot defenseless citizens.
As a result, 15 civilians were massacred. Among them were Eulalio Céspedes, a 37-year-young man years that he alternated his work in the maquila with engineering studies; Matías De la Cruz Galindo, a 63-year-old bricklayer who was on his way home when the assailants shot him; and Fernando Ruiz Flores, a 19-year-old nursing technician, among many other victims.
Sergio Hugo Rodriguez Alonso and his brother Cristiano Ronaldo, aged 12 and 10, respectively, were also injured in the attack. The children were in the car with their mother, another sister, and an eight-year-old cousin, when in the Almaguer neighborhood of Reynosa the vehicle in which they were on their way to play a soccer game was shot at by members of organized crime.
Despite the seriousness of the attack, the civil organization Comité de los Derechos Humanos de Nuevo Laredo reported that state and federal police authorities took between 60 and 90 minutes to respond to calls for help from residents to 911, or through social media.
Animal Politico has published several profiles of the victims of the massacre, and the testimonies of the relatives agree that the response of the authority was very late.
“There were no patrols anywhere,” said Silvia, sister of Eulalio, one of the victims.
Faced with this situation, the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee asked the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) to open a complaint file about “the vacuum of authorities” that had been registered in Reynosa between 12 and 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 19, while members of organized crime were touring up to five different colonies of the border city, shooting at citizens.
For its part, the Tamaulipas Prosecutor’s Office contradicted this version and said that it took the state police only 13 minutes to reach the first emergency report to 911.
However, he said that the attacks on the civilian population lasted for at least five hours in nine different events. So they are still investigating what the state police acted in that entire period of time, to determine if there was a late action.
For the massacre of Saturday, June 19, on June 27, the Tamaulipas Prosecutor’s Office announced the arrest of eight people allegedly involved intellectually and/or materially in the massacre. These new arrests have so far brought the total number of detainees in the case.
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