Mexico ( Amnesty International Blasts Mexico for Inaction on Human Rights Issues )

MEXICO CITY – Twelve months after taking office, the administration of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto “has failed to demonstrate that human rights are its priority,” Amnesty International said Friday.

Abuses, such as forced disappearances, violence against migrants and attacks on rights activists, have gone on with impunity during the first year of Peña Nieto’s six-year mandate, AI’s Mexican chapter said in a statement.

Besides abetting existing rights violations, the new government has presided over increased police brutality toward protesters and a rise in arbitrary arrests, the rights watchdog said.

The few advances, including a crime victims’ bill of rights and the creation of a special missing-persons unit in the Attorney General’s Office, have had no “real impact” on Mexico, according to AI.

The clearest sign Peña Nieto’s administration has not prioritized ending the “epidemic of violence and abuse ... that characterized the (2006-2012) tenure of Felipe Calderon” is that the government put off until next March its review of a set of recommendations from the U.N. Human Rights Council, AI said.

Fully implementing those recommendations, issued last month, “would contribute to mitigating this serious human rights crisis,” Amnesty International said.