Photo: U.S. State Department

By KELIN DILLON

In the U.S. State Department’s newly released 2023 Annual Report on Human Rights, the United States highlighted its concern with the administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) ongoing attacks on the Mexican judiciary – specifically, against Supreme Court Justice of the Nation (SCJN) President Norma Piña. 

“President López Obrador and other government actors verbally attacked the Mexican judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, criticizing judges who ruled against the administration on numerous occasions,” read the report.

The U.S. State Department pointed to the burning of an effigy emblazoned with Piña’s image during a Mexico City rally in March 2023, as well as the May 2023 demonstration in Veracruz where “supporters carried coffins with the names of seven of the 11 judges of the SCJN and accused them of siding with conservative opponents and ruling against the administration’s priorities.”

The report went on to cite U.S. concern over Mexico’s public lashings against the country’s journalists and civil organizations, the overall criticism launched from AMLO’s daily morning conference and the continued impunity for crimes committed nationwide.

As such, the U.S. State Department noted that Mexican outlets often “censored themselves for fear of reprisals from government officials and transnational criminal organizations” and “the official discredit of press workers” via AMLO’s controversial Who’s Who in Lies of the Week segment.

The report also claimed that Mexico’s primary human rights issues – torture, homicide, arbitrary detentions, drug trafficking, and gender-based violence – experienced no decrease from the department’s 2022 Annual Report on Human Rights.

Following the report’s release, López Obrador took to his daily morning press conference on Tuesday, April 23 to refute the United States’ claims and to demand respect from the U.S. State Department.

“Yesterday, the U.S. State Department issued a resolution saying that human rights are violated in Mexico and they position themselves as the world’s judges; we are respectful of them, they should be respectful of us,” said AMLO at the time.

“And why do you allocate billions of dollars for the war, and why don’t you release Assange who has been unjustly imprisoned, why don’t you care for the young people of the United States who die from drug addiction to fentanyl, why do you repress and mistreat migrants?” concluded the federal executive.