A state report, published in late March, has recommended that reparations be made to the victims of religious freedom violations including the closing of a church in the Oaxaca State.
The victims, members of the Independent Christian Pentecostal Church, filed a complaint with the ombudsman’s office after municipal authorities declared the area to be a ‘Protestant-free’ zone and forcibly closed the Pentecostal church with ‘concrete tubes, chains and padlocks’. The municipal president, Pedro Cruz Gonzalez, called for the destruction of the church building and demanded that the Protestants pay a 7000 peso (approximately £335) fine for ‘not being Catholic’. Tensions escalated when Cruz Gonzalez called for the Protestants to be lynched, imprisoned and tortured. Four men associated with the church were arbitrarily detained and tortured and only released after state and federal intervention.
‘Each and every one’
In its report, which only addressed the initial complaint and not the violence later in the year, the ombudsman recommended that the reparations be made for the damage to the church building and that the municipal authorities issue a building permit for the Pentecostal church. The report went on to suggest that, ‘As a way to compensate for the damage done to the victims… the authorities [should] permit each and every one of the activities of the members of the evangelical community according to the internal regulations of their community, with due respect for their freedom of religious belief and worship, which they profess, as well as offering them all administrative and justice services that local government is obliged to provide’. It went on to recommend that the state government organise round-table dialogues to bring together the different parties involved in order to reach a long term resolution.
