Priest shot dead in southern Mexico after leaving Sunday service | Crime News

Marcelo Perez is remembered by his colleagues as a staunch defender of the rights of indigenous workers in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

A priest known for his activism for indigenous and labor rights in Mexico was killed after leaving church services, local authorities said.

Catholic priest Marcelo Perez was returning from church Sunday when two men on a motorcycle pulled up next to his vehicle and shot him, prosecutors in the southern state of Chiapas said.

“Father Marcelo was a symbol of resistance and stood alongside the communities of Chiapas for decades, defending the dignity and rights of the people and working for true peace,” said the Jesuits, the religious order de Pérez, in a press release.

The killing comes amid a period of increased violence in the southern state, which recorded around 500 murders between January and August this year.

In addition to the rights of indigenous peoples and farm workers, the Jesuits said Perez was also a vocal critic of organized crime groups.

“This region not only suffers from murders, but also from forced recruitment (into criminal groups), kidnappings, threats and pillaging of its natural resources,” the religious order said.

Mexican human rights activists and environmental advocates have long condemned violent harassment and intimidation by criminal groups and state security forces.

Perez was himself a member of the indigenous Tzotzil people and had served the Chiapas community for two decades, developing a reputation as someone who could help resolve disputes, particularly over land.

“We will collaborate with all authorities so that his death does not go unpunished and that the culprits are brought to justice,” Chipas Governor Rutilio Escandon said in a message on social media, calling the assassination “cowardly “.

But in Mexico, accountability for murder is the exception rather than the rule, with about 95 percent of all homicides going unsolved.

Human rights activists and indigenous land defenders face high levels of violence and intimidation in Mexico.

A 2023 Amnesty International report finds that these groups face high levels of criminalization and persecution as part of a “broader strategy to deter and dismantle the defense of land, territorial and environmental rights.”

The rights group also said that Mexico “ranks among the countries with the highest number of murders of environmental defenders.”