CSW is calling on state officials in Hidalgo, Mexico, to intervene on behalf of four Protestant Christians who are at risk of losing their land, and two additional families in another community who are being pressured to pay a heavy fine due to their religious beliefs.

Community leaders in the village of Cuamontax Huazalingo, in the Huasteca region of Hidalgo state have begun a process of dispossession of the family “ejido” (an area of communal land generally used by community members for farming) lands belonging to Gilberto Badillo, Uriel Badillo and their wives, Agustina Lara and Adelina Simón Pozos who were forcibly displaced from the village in July 2019.

The leaders claim that the lands will be confiscated from the Protestant families because of their failure to care for them. This ignores the fact that the Protestant familes have been denied access to the land ever since their forcible displacement, in violation of the rights granted to them under the Mexican Constitution and Agrarian law.

The families were displaced from Cuamontax Huazalingo on 28 July 2019 when they refused to sign an agreement that prohibits Protestants from entering the village. All of their belongings were removed, the doors and windows of their houses were broken, and barbed wire was placed around their homes to make them inhabitable and to prevent the families from returning.

In August 2020, community leaders harvested crops on the lands belonging to Gilberto Badillo without his permission. At the time, Uriel Badillo, Gilberto Badillo’s adult son, told CSW that community leaders were ignoring his “ejido” property rights in an attempt to appropriate the lands belonging to him.

To date, the families have been unable to return to their homes as threats from community leaders continue.  In January 2021, Uriel Badillo filed a complaint with the state of Hidalgo’s Human Rights Office calling for his family’s property rights be respected, with regards to the house (plot) and the farm plot on which his family depended economically. Despite the formal complaint and various appeals and complaints filed with the Regional Human Rights Office, municipal authorities, the Federal Religious Affairs Office and the Governor of Hidalgo, there has been no follow-up action.

Elsewhere in Hidalgo, two Protestant families from La Mesa Limantitla village face mounting pressure to pay an exorbitant fine that was levied as part of an illegal agreement in January 2020 in order to have their access to basic services reinstated after that had been cut off for a year following their refusal to sign a document renouncing their faith in January 2019. The agreement states that they do not have the right to hold religious services in the community.

CSW Head of Advocacy Anna-Lee Stangl said: “The Hidalgo state government’s failure to address the religious freedom violations in the communities of Cuamontax and La Mesa Limantitla, particularly the forced displacement of two religious minority families over a year and a half ago, has led directly to the continued deterioration of the situation and the current threats to now confiscate the families’ land on which they are dependent. CSW is deeply troubled by the systemic violations of freedom of religion or belief in the state of Hidalgo and the state government’s consistent failure to take any action to uphold freedom of religion or belief. We call on Hidalgo State Governor Omar Fayad Meneses to take immediate action to ensure that members of his administration are upholding the law, are trained in the right to freedom of religion or belief, and that those who commit criminal acts associated with religious intolerance are held to account. We urge his government to take swift action to allow for the safe return of the families to the community of Cuamontax, so that they may once again enjoy the use of lands that are rightfully theirs and other rights as guaranteed in the Mexican constitution.”

Notes to editors:

1.       Violations of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), including the denial of access to essential services such as water and electricity for religious minorities, blocking religious minority children from attending school, arbitrary detention and forced displacement are common in the Huasteca region of Hidalgo, which has a large indigenous population. Mexican law gives indigenous communities the right to protect their culture and maintain traditional governing structures as long as fundamental human rights protected by the Mexican constitution, including FoRB, are respected. However, a lack of understanding of these provisions and government inaction leads to high incidences of rights violations.

2.       Following the Mexican Revolution in 1910, a new constitution was enacted recognizing the right of individuals who work the land to be its owners. The constitution recognized the right of each community to possess sufficient land for their livelihoods. The “ejido” or communal land was not considered private property, it could not be sold, but could only be passed down to a child or spouse.  CSW has documented numerous cases among indigenous communities in various states of Mexico where religious majorities have threatened religious minorities with the loss of their “ejido” property rights if they do not participate economically and physically in the majority community's religious activities. For forcibly displaced families such as these, few options are available to them. Barred from working their own land, they are often left with few alternatives to earn an income. It is practically impossible to become part of another “ejido” or community unless the government intervenes in some way.