For truth and justice in the death of Abisaí Pérez Romero
On February 14, Abisaí Pérez Romero, a journalist, activist, and final-year student of Communication and Culture at the Autonomous University of Mexico City (a CLACSO member center), was found dead in Hidalgo, Mexico.
Abisaí collaborated in an outstanding way in the project "Identification and documentation of socio-environmental conflicts", which is part of the academic activities of CLACSO Working Group Political ecologies from the South/Abya-YalaTherefore, we express our deepest condolences and solidarity with his family and loved ones.
Abisaí was an active promoter of human rights, especially environmental rights in Tula and the Toltec region. In his journalistic and academic work, he documented the devastation caused to the population of the Mezquital Valley by the construction of the Eastern Emission Tunnel (1). He was also linked to the Atitalaquia Environmental Defense Committee, which denounces the imposition of a regional landfill in the community of Dendhó and demands justice for the murder of Jesús Bañuelos (Chuy) during a peaceful protest (2) in June 2022. Furthermore, he denounced the harmful effects of the Atotonilco Wastewater Treatment Plant, located within what is
It has been called one of Mexico's "environmental hells" (3), as well as the Mexican authorities' intention to divert drinking water from the aquifer in this place to supply the new Felipe Ángeles International Airport.
The causes of Abisaí's death have not yet been clarified, so we believe it could be directly linked to his work, being the first murder of a journalist and the fourth of a socio-environmental activist recorded in Mexico in 2023.
For this reason, since the CLACSO Working Group Political ecologies from the South/Abya-Yala We make an emphatic appeal to the country's judicial authorities to investigate this regrettable death from a human rights perspective, taking into account his profession as a social communicator and his activism as a defender of life.
February 22th 2023
CLACSO Working Group
Political ecologies from the South/Abya-Yala
(1) Abisaí Pérez Romero, «Ecocide of the Tula River due to the Eastern Emission Tunnel (TEO), Mexico.
Available on: https://ejatlas.org/conflict/rio-tula-y-el-tunel-emisor-oriente-teo
(2) Abisaí Pérez Romero, «Treatment of Urban Solid Waste and environmental emergency in
Atitalaquia, Mexico. Available at: https://ejatlas.org/conflict/chuy-y-atitalaquia-una-emergencia-
socio-environmental.
(3) Abisaí Pérez Romero, «Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) Atotonilco, Hidalgo,
Mexico." Available at: https://ejatlas.org/conflict/planta-tratadora-de-aguas-residuales-ptar-
Atotonilco de Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico
This text expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Group and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
