Prosecutor’s Office investigates murder of priest in southern Mexico. His faithful demand justice

The Mexican federal prosecutor’s office will take over the investigation into the murder of priest and human rights defender Marcelo Pérez, suggesting that the homicide could be related to organized crime. This decision was received with satisfaction during the massive mass prior to his burial, where justice for his death was once again demanded.

“It is already a very significant fact that this crime has just been assumed by the federal government,” said Bishop Emeritus Raúl Vera, a Mexican religious from northern Mexico who years ago was stationed in Chiapas.

“Let us work against the abuses of those in political and economic power, (against) those who have no shame, (against) those who pay murderers to silence voices like Father Marcelo” who not only listened but moved and denounced cried the bishop.

Around 2,000 people crowded the streets of San Andrés Larráinzar, the priest’s hometown, where the body mass was celebrated to say goodbye to the Tsotsil religious, recognized for mediating social, indigenous, peasant and political conflicts. of municipalities hit by all types of violence, and who was murdered in San Cristóbal de las Casas on Sunday after celebrating a mass.

“Justice for Marcelo,” the people shouted during the ceremony, cheering for “Father Marcelo” and for peace.

As they explained during the mass, parallel ceremonies were being held in areas of the border such as Comalapa or Chicomuselo, bordering Guatemala, where the population lives under siege by organized crime, so they cannot leave that region to join the tributes. .

The Catholic Church has demanded forceful actions not only to find the material authors of the murder but also the intellectuals. He has also denounced the criminalization of religious people and rights defenders.

President Claudia Sheinbaum, however, on Tuesday maintained her support for the current security strategy which, as Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi had said the day before in another mass for Pérez, “has not worked.”

Father Marcelo Pérez, 50, had received multiple threats and since 2015 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) had asked Mexico for protection measures that did not work, which is why various human rights groups held the authorities responsible for his death.

“Far from his protection, the Mexican State criminalized him, encouraged accusations against him and judicially persecuted him through an arrest warrant,” recalled the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center, one of the most recognized local NGOs nationally and internationally.

The homicide occurred amid an escalation of insecurity in which, to the political, social and agrarian violence that had existed for decades in Chiapas, a couple of years ago the fight between the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels for control of the border with Guatemala and illicit drug trafficking was added. , weapons and, above all, migrants.

Father Pérez and the Catholic Church in the area did not cease to denounce the increase in murders, disappearances, intimidations and displacements of civilians in many municipalities where the cartels threaten the residents or use them as human shields in the face of the passivity of the Armed Forces. .

“Chiapas is a time bomb,” the priest had said a little over a month ago. Other organizations even spoke of the danger of a “civil war” in that state.

Sheinbaum denied this analysis. “It is important to work so that a situation like this does not occur again and that there are no displacements and to pacify, avoid extortion and crimes that are occurring,” he said. To achieve this, he assured, work is being done with the current governor and the next, who will take office in December – both from the ruling Morena party.

The United Nations, the IACHR and numerous Mexican organizations demanded that the authorities carry out an exhaustive and transparent investigation into the homicide.

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