Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Wednesday rejected criticism from a United Nations committee that urged the country to tackle widespread impunity in cases of enforced disappearance.
"No international organisation is going to put us in the dock if we are acting legally, humanely — if we do not allow corruption or impunity," López Obrador told reporters.
The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances said Tuesday that "organised crime has become a central perpetrator of disappearance in Mexico, with varying degrees of participation, acquiescence or omission by public servants."
It urged Mexico to act immediately to address an "alarming trend of rising enforced disappearances" facilitated by "almost absolute impunity," a UN statement said, noting that fewer than six percent of cases had resulted in prosecutions.
While men between 15 and 40 years old are most affected, disappearances of boys and girls from the age of 12, as well as of adolescents and women, are increasing, the committee said.
The number of people listed as missing in Mexico stands at nearly 99,000, according to a national register.
López Obrador also dismissed the commission's call to demilitarise security tasks in the Latin American country.
The UN delegates "do not have, with all due respect, all the information," he said.
"It's not like before when the army was used to suppress or finish off the wounded," López Obrador added.
— TIMES/AFP
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