The United Nations-mandated Working Group on Arbitrary Detention claimed that the arrest and detention of Nestora Salgado in Mexico are illegal. The dual-citizen political community leader was arrested in 2013 and is still being detained in Mexico after leading a community police force in the country.
Seattle-based Salgado returned to her native country Mexico in 2013 and set up a community police force to protect residents from corruption and organized crime, ABC News reported. She was arrested in August of that year after her police force detained suspected members of organized crime groups, who claimed that they were kidnapped. A judge cleared her of the kidnapping charges but she is still in prison for a state case, the newswire noted.
"I have no regrets about what I did, and I never will have any regrets," Salgado told The Guardian in an interview in June 2015. "I am not a person who likes to confront the authorities, but in a place where dialogue is not possible, what else can you do?"
The U.N. group told Salgado's lawyers on Feb. 3, Tuesday, that the arrest and detention were illegal, Fox News also reported. The group concluded that not only should Mexican authorities free Salgado, they should also pay her in lieu of human rights violation.
The group reportedly examined evidence collated by the Seattle University Law School's International Human Rights Clinic and responses from the Mexican government. The International Human Rights Clinic represents Salgado, the news source said.
After examining various statements and evidence, the U.N. group concluded last December that Salgado should not have been arrested and detained. They claimed that community policing, which is what Salgado's group has been practicing, is recognized and protected by Mexican law.
Furthermore, she was not given proper health treatment while being detained. Her dual citizenship was also ignored by the Mexican authorities.
"This is a very important channel for political pressure: We have an impartial, international panel that says she's detained illegally. I think it's kind of a breakthrough," Thomas Antkowiak, the law clinic's director, was cited as saying. "We've been in ongoing negotiations with the government in Mexico, the federal government mainly, and those have gone nowhere. We're hoping this is going to inject new life into those negotiations," he added.
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