"UN CONDEMNS THE MURDER OF ACTIVIST JESÚS BAÑUELOS ACEVEDO, FROM THE ‘NO AL GARBAGE DUMP’ MOVEMENT IN ATITALAQUIA", 22 June 2022

...The Office in Mexico of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (ONU-DH) condemned the assassination of the activist and human rights defender Jesús Bañuelos Acevedo committed on June 20, 2022, in the municipality of Atitalaquia, Hidalgo.

According to the information received by the UN-DH, the defender of health and the environment was assassinated while guarded a camp set up to protest against the operation of the Regional Center for Urban Solid Waste Treatment, located in Atitalaquia.

According to witnesses, an armed group broke into the camp, assaulted two activists and shot Jesús Bañuelos Acevedo in the head. For a month, environmentalists have held a sit-in at the access to the landfill as part of their protest against the operation of the site, which they accused of causing environmental damage in the area.

“The murder of Mr. Bañuelos Acevedo is another tragic evidence of the serious violence that seeks to silence the voices of those who defend economic, social and cultural rights in the country”... said Guillermo Fernández-Maldonado, UN-DH representative. in Mexico.

“Likewise, companies and the private sector, which are crucial for socioeconomic development, can also play a very important role in reinforcing the recognition of the tasks of human rights and environmental defenders” he added...

Acevedo was a member of the “No al Garbage Dump in Atitalaquia” movement, to protest the operation of that sanitary landfill, managed by the company Ecological Solution Mexico (Esmex)...