Alejandro Cerezo Contreras denied transit through Panama

On 1st October 2018, Mexican human rights defender Alejandro Cerezo Contreras was forced to board a flight back to Mexico from Panama, on his way to the III International Seminar on Protection Mechanisms for Human Rights Defenders in Asunción, Paraguay .

Alejandro Cerezo Contreras is a member of Comité Cerezo (Cerezo Committee) and coordinator of Acción Urgente para Defensores de Derechos Humanos (Urgent Action for Human Rights Defenders). In recent years, Comité Cerezo has worked on documenting attacks on human rights defenders in Mexico to identify patterns of social repression. Another important aspect of its work is the promotion of the protection of human rights defenders.

The human rights defender was travelling from Mexico to Paraguay via a connecting flight in Panama, when immigration agents at Tocumán airport in Panama asked for his passport and mobile phone and took him to an immigration office. After being thoroughly interrogated about personal matters and about his imprisonment in 2001, they told him he could not transit due to legal restrictions in Panama regarding people with convictions. He was denied a phone call or any consular assistance before he was forcibly sent back to Mexico several hours later. In 2012, he had similar problems leaving from and returning to Mexico when he travelled to Germany to receive de Aquisgrán Peace Price. That same year, he was not allowed to board a flight to Belgium.

Alejandro Cerezo Contreras was arbitrarily detained and tortured in 2001 and remained imprisoned until his exoneration and release in March 2005. Despite international recognition of the work of Comité Cerezo, its members are still being stigmatised. Alejandro Cerezo Contreras was granted precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after receiving death threats related to his role as a human rights defender in 2006; one of the measures involved the Mexican State refraining from considering the defender and his family as criminals.

Front Line Defenders is concerned about the international impact of the criminalisation of Alejandro Cerezo Contreras and its effect on his well-being and his work as a human rights defender.

Front Line Defenders urges the authorities in Mexico to:

1. Request clarifications to the Panamanian Government regarding the denial of entry of Alejandro Cerezo Contreras;

2. Take measures to ensure the freedom of movement of Alejandro Cerezo Contreras;

3. Take all necessary measures to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity and security of Alejandro Cerezo Contreras and his family members.