held in pretrial detention since 2011, and arrested a man as a suspected operator of convicted by a federal judge in December the espionage software. 2021. She had been arbitrarily detained and In response to student protests, police from tortured with rape by members of the Federal the Federal Protection Service took charge of Police. security at the Centre for Economic Research Authorities detained a former Federal Police and Teaching in December, a public commander accused of torture in the case of university in Mexico City, making it one of the French citizen Florence Cassez. She was very few academic institutions in the country 3 detained in 2007 and released in 2013 after to have a police presence on campus. being cleared of the crime of kidnapping. Her VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS co-defendant, Israel Vallarta, also a torture victim, remained in pretrial detention, 15 The authorities registered 3,427 killings of years after his arrest. women in the country during the year, of The National Programme for the Prevention which 887 were under investigation as and Punishment of Torture and Ill-treatment feminicides. had still not been published by the end of the In the state of Mexico, the state with the year. highest number of feminicides in 2021, there were serious flaws in the criminal FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND investigations of these crimes.4 The ASSEMBLY authorities failed to properly safeguard the Authorities continued to stigmatize and evidence collected, examine all lines of repress feminist protests and to misuse the investigation and correctly apply a gender criminal justice system to discourage people perspective. As a result, it was left to families from taking part in them. Days before to invest time and money in pursuing International Women's Day demonstrations, investigations, which increased the likelihood the President and some other officials that these crimes would go unpunished. In described the protests as violent. In the addition, victims’ families continued to be states of Querétaro, Aguascalientes and threatened and mistreated by the authorities. Jalisco, the security forces detained at least These shortcomings were neither unique to 44 women protesters for allegedly damaging the state of Mexico nor new (they had already property, in some cases demanding large been observed in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, sums of money to clear them of since the 1990s) but served to highlight responsibility. Mexico’s persistent failure to investigate and In May, during a protest by students from prevent violence against women. the Mactumactzá Rural Normal School in the In May, a statue in memory of Karla Pontigo state of Chiapas, the authorities detained 97 was installed in San Luis Potosí as part of the people. Of these, 74 were women, some of reparation for her killing. Her feminicide whom reported being subjected to sexual remained unpunished. violence by police officers. HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS In June, a court handed down a second conviction against the former mayor of Human rights defenders continued to face Chínipas, state of Chihuahua, for the killing of high levels of violence and the vast majority journalist Miroslava Breach in 2017. of attacks remained unpunished. The organization Article 19 recorded at least Organizations reported an increase in seven killings of journalists during the year. violence against defenders of the land, An investigation revealed that the territory and environment. The government former government purchased Pegasus made statements calling into question the software to carry out secret surveillance of work of organizations and communities that dozens of journalists, activists and human opposed megaprojects promoted by the rights defenders.2 In November, authorities presidential administration. Amnesty International Report 2021/22 251