Mexican activist of the Nahuatl people, Higinio Bustos, a member of the National Front for the Struggle for Socialism and imprisoned since 2021 for alleged homicide, was detained without the necessary guarantees and should be released, concluded the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
In the report on the case published by the group this week, which analyzed it in its 100th session last August, it concludes that Bustos's deprivation of liberty violates articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. To remedy this situation, 'the appropriate action would be to immediately release Bustos and grant him the effective right to obtain compensation and other types of reparation, in accordance with international law,' states the document.
Bustos was detained on May 3, 2021, by twelve agents of the Attorney General's Office of Veracruz without showing an arrest warrant or providing explanations, in connection with an alleged homicide committed in 2008.
The working group is not convinced that the agents had a valid arrest warrant in their hands after thirteen years,' states the twelve-page document published by the committee of five experts, currently chaired by New Zealand jurist Matthew Gillett.
Regarding the charges against the detainee, they emphasize that there is no clear accusation against Bustos in the initial statements presented in 2008 by the father of the deceased 'nor a witness that identifies him as the wrongdoer.'
The working group expressed its conviction that Bustos 'has been detained and is being tried in a discriminatory manner due to his indigenous status, which has gained more weight with the knowledge that he belongs to the Nahuatl people, defender of the human right to self-determination of indigenous peoples and territory.'
Although the Mexican government denied any link between the arrest and his ethnic or political affiliation, the experts also believe that Bustos's affiliation with the National Front for the Struggle for Socialism, 'which works for the human right to a dignified life, against forced disappearance, extrajudicial execution, and the freedom of political prisoners,' also influenced the detention.
