Mexican Police Accused of Torturing Minors

A human rights group here charged Tuesday that Mexican police officers have “systematically” beaten and tortured minors who were in custody.

Police officials immediately denied the accusations and denounced the group’s allegations as “irresponsible.”

As evidence, the Binational Center for Human Rights--an independent watchdog group--said it had statements from 102 victims, all of them 17 years of age or younger, who told of specific instances of mistreatment at the hands of state, city and federal police. The great majority of the allegations involved the Baja California State Judicial Police. Under the Mexican legal system, this agency investigates a broad range of crimes, from robbery to murder.

In the signed statements, some of which were made available to reporters at a news conference, the youths recounted a wide array of alleged cases of physical and mental abuse, including beatings, electric shocks and instances in which police officers allegedly submerged victims’ heads in toilet bowls or in water barrels. Typically, according to the statements, the officers were attempting to exact “confessions” that the youths had committed various crimes, usually robberies.

The scores of alleged cases of abuse cited by the human rights group all occurred between December and this month. However, the rights group said that such mistreatment was standard practice both before and since. The alleged mistreatment occurred in offices at various police headquarters, as well as in cars, houses and other locations, the group charged.

Besides the signed statements, the group presented more dramatic evidence: Two youths appeared at the news conference and described beatings by Mexican police.

“They beat me in the stomach and never explained why they were doing it,” said Jose Luis Rincon Torres, 16, a baby-faced, green-eyed native of the northern Mexican city of Chihuahua who wore jeans and a dirty white T-shirt emblazoned with “Guess,” a trendy American clothing brand.

Rincon, who hawks flowers on city streets, said he and friends were apprehended and beaten by state judicial police officers last April. He charged that he and other youths were kept in adult cells--another alleged violation of Mexican law.

‘It Must Stop’

The human rights group said it planned to ask the Mexican attorney general’s office to investigate. The group said it planned to hold a similar public forum in Mexico City to dramatize its allegations. The group also planned to send a copy of its evidence to Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group that has tracked and condemned rights abuses throughout the world.

“We believe that this kind of treatment is illegal under the Mexican Constitution, and that it must stop,” said Victor Clark Alfaro, the head of the human rights group and an often-outspoken--and controversial--activist for the rights of Mixtec Indians and other groups and individuals.

Clark described the human rights group, which he founded in January, as a non-governmental concern that relies heavily on volunteers and is financed largely through donations.

Later, at an impromptu meeting with reporters, Luis H. Lopez Gutierrez, a deputy state attorney general in charge of Tijuana, said that the charges were unfounded. Lopez, a former deputy mayor who has held his current post for five weeks, said that he and his subordinates regularly inspect area jails, prisons and other holding facilities to ensure that there is no mistreatment of inmates.

“Let there be no mistake,” said Lopez, who was obviously angered by the charges, “this government will not accept brutality against anyone. If there are charges of brutality against an officer, we will investigate, and, if there is evidence, the officer responsible will be charged.”

Ignacio Cruz Navarro, chief of the state judicial police in Tijuana, said he knew nothing of the allegations, but that he planned to “ignore” them.