Mexico

Executive Summary

The constitution guarantees all persons religious freedom, including the right to engage in religious ceremonies and acts of worship.  Under the constitution, indigenous communities enjoy a protected legal structure allowing them to practice their own particular “uses and customs.”  The General Directorate for Religious Associations (DGAR) within the Interior Ministry (SEGOB) continued to work with state and local officials on criminal investigations involving religious groups.  During the year, DGAR investigated 11 cases related to religious freedom at the federal level, compared with six in 2017.  Government officials stated a continued wave of killings and attacks on Catholic priests reflected high levels of generalized criminal violence throughout the country rather than targeting for religious beliefs.  Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), however, said criminal groups targeted Catholic priests because communities viewed them as moral authority figures.  NGOs said criminal groups sought to remove these moral authority figures so communities would more likely overlook organized crime activities.  According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), in March community authorities in San Miguel Chiptic, Chiapas State, threatened three indigenous families for converting from Catholicism to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and later did significant damage to three of their properties.  Members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church sought assistance from municipal and state authorities, who declined to intervene, according to CSW.  On May 23, local police in San Miguel Chiptic arrested two Seventh-day Adventist men for preaching beliefs other than Catholicism.  At year’s end, six families remained displaced and sheltered with other Seventh-day Adventist Church members in Chiapas.  Evangelical Protestant leaders continued to state local indigenous leaders pressured some evangelical Protestants in mainly rural and/or indigenous areas in the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca to support financially and/or participate in Catholic cultural and religious events, and in some cases convert or return to Catholicism.  In September CSW reported representatives from Rancheria Yocnajab, located in the Comitan de Dominguez municipality of Chiapas, did not allow the burial of an evangelical Protestant in the community public cemetery because she had not participated in Catholic religious festivals.

The Catholic Multimedia Center (CMC) reported criminal groups continued targeting priests and other religious leaders in some parts of the country, which included killings, kidnappings, death threats, and extortion.  The CMC reported unidentified individuals killed seven priests and kidnapped another during the year, and in August asserted Mexico was the most violent country for priests in Latin America for the 10th year in a row.  In March unidentified individuals detonated two homemade bombs in two Catholic churches in Matamoros, Tamaulipas.  CSW reported unidentified individuals killed four non-Catholic clergy.

U.S. embassy and consulate officials met with government counterparts throughout the country to discuss concerns about violence toward religious leaders as well as reports of discrimination toward religious minorities in some communities.  Embassy officials met with members of religious groups and NGOs to gather details about specific cases.