HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION SAYS TORTURE JUMPED BY 300%

The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), embroiled in a conflict with the Attorney General's Office (PGR), will present a report before the U.N. human rights officials saying that torture in Mexico has increased 300 percent during the current administration. Additionally, the report by the autonomous government-funded body points to the PGR as the judicial entity that most uses torture in Mexico.

Following a U.N. report in May of 2003 lambasting the widespread use of torture to extract confessions from suspects, PGR officials defended their office's practices, insisting torture was a punishable offense, and that the CNDH itself had the power to make sure that any police agent attempting to torture would not go unpunished. But the CNDH, calling torture "the most extreme humiliation a person can receive," says that torture has been practiced three times as much during the Fox administration as during the previous administration of Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000). In a broader view, the CNDH reports that it had received 2,166 complaints of torture between 1990 and 2004, most of them coming during arrests or while the suspect was being held by authorities before trial.