While Chiapas Governor Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar boasts that it is the “second safest state in the country,” attacks against defenders, journalists, and activists have increased by 29% so far in 2025, according to a report by the Observatory of Human Rights Defenders in Chiapas (El Obse).
Last Friday (31), El Obse released a report documenting 79 attacks against defenders and journalists in the southern Mexican state during the first half of 2025. According to the organization, the data is alarming because, compared to the same period in 2024, it shows a clear trend of increasing violence against defenders.
El Obse‘s records show that the types of attacks documented seek to obstruct or halt human rights work in Chiapas, as evidenced by the pattern of violence and harassment recorded. Among the cases documented, 85% were direct attacks on defenders and journalists, and only 15% were contextual risks. Of the total number of violent acts, 62% were physical attacks and 38% were digital attacks.
The most frequent types of attacks include intimidation, defamation, surveillance, criminalization, verbal abuse, and abuse of authority. Digital attacks took the form of hateful, aggressive, intimidating, or sexual messages.
“In particular, there has been an increase in surveillance and intimidation in digital spaces, as well as serious physical attacks. Defamation is carried out by state officials in retaliation for reports of violence and ineffectiveness of the state apparatus, criminalizing the legitimate work of civil society and journalists,” the report details.
El Obse also highlights the difference between current data and that from 2024 in terms of the origins of the attacks. Its records show that during the first seven months of 2025, there was a change in the profile of the perpetrators. While last year those responsible were identified as members of organized crime, in 2025 the main perpetrators are unknown actors and state actors.
Secondly, the organization details that, especially in cases of defamation, government authorities are identified as aggressors. Finally, they identify individuals linked to organized crime. Among the main motivations attributed to the aggressors are generating fear, discreditation, deactivating defense work, criminalization, and self-censorship.
Most targeted: land, justice, and women
According to El Obse, the 79 incidents recorded represent an average of 11 violent incidents per month. Among the attacks against defenders, the most targeted rights are those related to land and territory, access to justice, and the rights of indigenous peoples and women.
The defense of land and territory stands out as the area with the highest number of attacks, compared to the same period recorded in 2024. The report also emphasizes that there has been an increase in attacks against those who defend women’s rights.
Among the victims are members of human rights organizations, activists, community authorities, and leaders of local organizations in contexts of greater violence. “The majority of victims of documented attacks are women, 66% in 2025, which represents an increase compared to the same period in 2024, when they accounted for 58%,” El Obse points out.
On the rise, attacks in the context of “peace”
In March, in his report on the first 100 days of his term, Governor Ramírez Aguilar presented Chiapas as “the second safest state in the country.” However, information gathered by organizations collaborating with El Obse reveals a very different scenario.
With the implementation of a new security strategy, which highlights the actions of the new police force known as the Pakal Immediate Response Force (FRIP), populations have witnessed a reduction in armed confrontations, which has contributed to a perception of apparent calm, the report emphasizes.
“However, violence continues to this day, and the forms of control and threats experienced by the population persist, such as forced recruitment, disappearances, forced displacement, and the presence of armed forces throughout the state,” denounces El Obse.
The report adds that FRIP operations have focused on the prosecution of common crimes and, furthermore, human rights violations have been documented during police actions, including arbitrary detentions and torture. In addition, they emphasize that there is control of information and the narrative surrounding the security strategy, as exemplified by the multiple public denials of violent acts reported by the population on the part of state officials.
“With 73 defenders attacked between January and July 2025 and 69 during the same period in 2024, it is impossible to speak of progress in the security of human rights defenders in the state,“ says El Obse, for whom the persistence of levels of violence contrasts with the institutional narrative that insists on the idea of ”pacification” of the territories while normalizing the crisis of insecurity.
“This narrative, however, is not supported by data or a real transformation of security conditions, but rather relies on a strategy of increasing militarization that reinforces territorial control without questioning—let alone dismantling—organized crime networks,” the report notes. For organizations, this contradiction is clear in the creation and strengthening of the FRIP, presented as a special force to combat organized crime, while at the same time official discourse denies that violence is a structural threat in Chiapas. “While it is claimed that ‘nothing is happening,’ police and military forces are deployed under the pretext of security, exacerbating the criminalization of human rights defenders and the military occupation of Chiapas, with particular emphasis on border municipalities,” emphasizes El Obse.
Original text by Aldo Santiago published by Avispa Midia on November 4th, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.