Hundreds of people paid tribute yesterday in his hometown to Father Marcelo Pérez, the Catholic priest, defender of indigenous people and peasants, murdered last Sunday at the end of a mass in Chiapas.
AAlthough he had been suffering threats for almost a decade and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) had asked Mexico for protection measures since 2015, Pérez was shot dead in San Cristóbal de las Casas.
The crowd that wanted to say goodbye to the priest was so large that there was no room in the church of San Andrés Larraínzara small town in the mountains, 50 km from where he was murdered and the bilingual mass, in tsotsil and Spanish, had to be held in the central park. The funeral will be today.
Father Marcelo Pérez, 50 years old, was a Tsotsil indigenous man recognized for mediating social, indigenous, peasant and political conflicts in municipalities plagued by all types of disputes and acts of violence by organized crime.
In 2016, he was Pope Francis’ translator during his visit to Chiapas, when the pontiff made the use of indigenous languages official in masses.
Violence has not stopped growing in the State.
From the Catholic Church, the call was forceful. “We hope that there will be decisive action to restore peace in the country and of course in Chiapas,” said the bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Rodrigo Aguilar.
Aguilar and Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi, who ordained Pérez as a priest 22 years ago, spoke to the press after the mass, while friends and followers of the religious approached the open coffin to pay their respects, amid music and many tears.
“This is a reflection of the entire country. Please don’t say that Mexico is fine,” said the cardinal.
At the UN, at IACHR and numerous human rights groups, demanded an independent and exhaustive investigation of the homicide.
Tapachula is perceived as the most unsafe
The Mexican city with the highest perception of insecurity is Tapachulain Chiapasaccording to the National Urban Public Security Survey published yesterday by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
In Tapachula, 91.9% of its inhabitants reported this feeling in the midst of the organized crime dispute for controlling drug and human trafficking from Central America. They are followed by Naucalpan, in the State of Mexico (88%); Fresnillo, Zacatecas (87.9%); Ecatepec, in Edomex (87%), Irapuato, Guanajuato (86.4%) and Tuxtla Gutiérrez, also in Chiapas (85.9 percent).
In contrast, the least insecure city was San Pedro Garza García (Nuevo León), where only 13.7% of the population reported insecurity.
They were followed in the survey by the Benito Juárez mayor’s office of Mexico City (17.5%), Tampico (20%), Piedras Negras (20.2%) and the Jalisco tourist destination of Puerto Vallarta. where only 21.3% of the population considers it unsafe.
Regarding specific spaces, 67.3% of the population felt unsafe in ATMs, 61.8% in public transportation, 53% on the roads and 51.3 percent in the streets they usually use and in the bank.
The citizens who reported having witnessed crimes near their home were related to alcohol consumption in the streets (58.9%), robberies or assaults (47.9%), vandalism and sale or consumption of drugs (39.2%), shooting of weapons (36.6 %) and violent gangs or gang activity (24.2 percent).
The survey highlighted that the perception of insecurity among Mexicans fell to 58.6% in the third quarter of 2024, the lowest level in its history and which marks the last three months of the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
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