WASHINGTON – Soldiers and police in Mexico often resort to torture to extract confessions from suspects held in preventive detention, individuals and organizations told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a unit of the Organization of American States.

The Northwest Citizens Human Rights Commission and the Mexican Commission for Defense and Promotion of Human Rights presented extensive documentation to back the allegations.

Representatives of the groups also told the OAS panel that preventive detention, a mechanism intended to be used sparingly, has become the rule in the Mexican government’s “war” against powerful drug cartels.

While acknowledging that last year’s overhaul of the criminal code brought some improvements, such as establishing the formal presumption of innocence, the legislation as a whole does not strike the necessary balance between public safety requirements and the need to protect human rights.

That occurs because a system of exceptions to constitutional rights has been structured that opens the door to an arbitrary exercise of power, as in the case of preventive detention and an expanded definition of organized crime, they said.

Mayra Lopez Pineda, one of those presenting the allegations, recounted the case of 25 Tijuana municipal police officers held without bail for 40 days, during which time they were tortured by the military.

The police officers never knew why they were arrested, no warrant had been issued for their arrest, and they were tortured to extract confessions of their complicity with drug traffickers, which the cops were then forced to sign without their being allowed to read them.

Reference was also made to the case of four civilians arrested in Tijuana in June for their suspected involvement in a kidnapping and who were taken to two private homes in non-official vehicles.

At the time of their arrest they were blindfolded and later were beaten in the ribs, at the same time they were subjected to simulated asphyxiation by having plastic bags put over their heads. They were also given electric shocks in the genitals.

The four civilians were forced to sign their “confessions” while blindfolded.

Also at the hearing was Luis Castellanos, the brother of Ricardo Castellanos, arbitrarily arrested in September in Tijuana, and who was beaten, submitted to electric shocks and simulated asphyxiation.

Castellanos, accompanied by Blanca Mesina, daughter of a policeman who suffered a similar experience, asked the OAS panel to provide protection for families of the victims because of the threats they have received from the military and public officials.

The organizations asked the commission to arrange with the Mexican government a visit by a rapporteur for people deprived of their freedom and asked that Mexico set up a study group with the IACHR to receive reports of torture committed on military bases.

The Mexican government, represented by Victor Hugo Perez, did not address any of the specific allegations, saying only that a mechanism exists to avoid torture and a judge to review preventive detention orders. EFE