Rubí Jazmín Cortés Salazar
Rubí Jazmín Cortés Salazar is a Mixteca human rights defender and a member of the Alianza Multicultural de Mujeres Originarias y Radicadas en Tlaxiaco (AMMOR, Multicultural Alliance of Women Originary from and Located in Tlaxiaco). In Sector 01 of Tlaxiaco, she is the President of the Committee for the Defense of Public Education and she has played a crucial role in mobilising parents to advocate for their children's rights to education.
Human rights defenders (HRDs) and journalists in Mexico are subject to intimidation, legal harassment, arbitrary detention, death threats, acts of physical aggression, enforced disappearances and killings as a result of their activities in defence of human rights and the exercise of freedom of expression and journalism.
Disappearances are endemic in Mexico, often happening with collusion from the state. HRDs working on the issue face serious risk, up to and including death. HRDs working in the defence of territory, particularly indigenous territory, face a similar level of risk. They are criminalised, imprisoned, defamed, and often killed. Journalists working on any of these issues, or issues related to the drugs trade and the government's complicity in this, also run the risk of losing their lives.
