Mexico: New attacks against woman human rights defender Hortensia Telésforo Jiménez and members of the Asamblea General Permanente del Pueblo de San Gregorio Atlapulco

On 14 April 2026, 18 human rights defenders and members of the Asamblea General Permanente del Pueblo de San Gregorio Atlapulco, including woman human rights defender Hortensia Telésforo Jiménez, were physically and verbally attacked by a group of individuals with political interests linked to the San Gregorio Atlapulco Integral Water Plan. This is the last incident of a series of threats, attacks and harassment against members of the Asamblea General Permanente del Pueblo de San Gregorio Atlapulco, which have increased following a ruling issued on 6 April 2026 in favour of an appeal for constitutional protection filed by members of the San Gregorio Atlapulco community, in response to the violation of their rights during the approval and implementation of the Integral Water Plan.

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The Asamblea General Permanente del Pueblo de San Gregorio Atlapulco (General Permanent Assembly of the People of San Gregorio Atlapulco) is a community body of the Nahua indigenous people that has established itself as a space for self-governance and collective decision-making in response to extractive projects in their territory. The Assembly defends collective rights, particularly those relating to water, the environment and territory, as well as the protection of the chinampas (floating gardens), and the cultural rights of indigenous peoples. It brings together various community members, including ejido members, chinamperos, women, young people, teachers, and organised residents. They organise assemblies, vigils, peaceful protests, and legal actions to oppose projects such as the Actopan Collector and the Integral Water Plan, and to reclaim and sustain community spaces such as the Tlamachtiloyan People’s Library/House. Hortensia Telésforo Jiménez is a woman human rights defender from the indigenous community of San Gregorio Atlapulco, in Xochimilco, Mexico City. She has promoted community organising processes to tackle issues affecting her community, in particular the defence of territory, water, and the chinampas as an ancestral agricultural technique.

According to the human rights defenders, the Actopan Collector and the Integral Water Plan arise from the touristification of the area rather than the community’s needs. The community fears the Integral Water Plan increases the discharge of wastewater into the San Gregorio Atlapulco community’s water channels, exacerbating a process that the community claim amounts to ecocide. This directly affects the community’s health and the local ecosystem. Defenders are also denouncing a lack of transparency and the withholding of information by the authorities regarding the treatment plant that will manage the wastewater, as well as the company in charge of it. This is a violation of the rights of the people of San Gregorio Atlapulco and increases the risk to the community and to the human rights defenders denouncing this situation.

On 14 April 2026, a commission from the Asamblea, including Hortensia Telésforo Jiménez and 17 other human rights defenders, as well as the Colectivo Parajes Chinamperos Unidos de San Gregorio Atlapulco, visited the facilities of the construction company responsible for the Integral Water Plan. They delivered a ruling issued on 6 April 2026 by a Mexico City District Court, which ordered the suspension of work related to the Integral Water Plan, as well as a prior, free and informed consultation, in accordance with the customs and traditions of the people of San Gregorio Atlapulco. The ruling is a response to an appeal for constitutional protection filed by members of the San Gregorio Atlapulco community.

After the group left the site, they noticed there were company workers around the area. Hortensia was keeping an eye on her colleagues, but noticed that the car in which she was travelling, along with her mother, father and a colleague of the Assembly, was being chased by a motorcicle with two individuals, a woman and man the community recognised as coming from Atlapulco and known to have links to the water plan and local political interests. These individuals attempted to catch up with the car in which the defender was travelling at full speed and to attack them. In the first attack, the woman threw a stone at the side window of the vehicle where Hortensia Telésforo Jiménez was sitting. Her father was driving the vehicle and sped away. On the second attack, they heard an explosion that shattered the back window of the vehicle. Hortensia and her family tried to flee their attackers, finding refuge on Calle del Bo de Chalma at the grounds of a house. They were pursued there until they lost their pursuers, but a group of neighbours later alerted the defender that the attackers had been seen at her home several times to check if she was there, leaving before she arrived.

On the same day, another delegate and member of Asamblea General Permanente del Pueblo de San Gregorio Atlapulco was cornered by seven individuals near the facilities of the company in charge of the Actopan Collector, while he was carrying out community work in the neighbourhood chapel. According to the community, the individuals are known for their personal political interests in the Integral Water Plan. The defender took refuge in a local shop. Two of the attackers entered the shop and threatened to hit him with a cement block. A person who tried to intervene was physically injured.

Few days before, on 12 April 2026, Hortensia Telésforo Jiménez and another member of the Asamblea were harassed by a group of taxi drivers in favour of the continuation of the Integral Water Plan. The taxi drivers pressured the human rights defenders to leave the area, claiming that their vehicles were parked in an area that the taxi drivers had informally appropriated. As they left, they realised that the tyres on all of their cars had been slashed, including Hortensia’s. The human rights defenders had planned to hold communal bonfires with residents of San Gregorio Atlapulco to raise awareness of the constitutional ruling that protects the community.

These attacks have occurred while the Asamblea General Permanente del Pueblo de San Gregorio Atlapulco has been denouncing the extraction and diversion of water, increased pollution and arbitrary decision-making by the Secretariat for Integrated Water Management (SEGIAUGA) in promoting the Water Development Plan without legitimate, prior, free and informed consultation with the people of San Gregorio Atlapulco. In this context, individuals with political interests and linked to the Integral Water Plan have organized to delegitimise the defence of human rights, putting human rights defenders in San Gregorio Atlapulco at increased risk.While there has been a surge in attacks after the ruling on 6 April 2026, in recent years, human rights defenders in San Gregorio Atlapulco have faced an escalation of threats and attacks. Members have been threatened on social media, received death threats online, physical and verbal assaults, as well as psychological harassment. Additionally, woman human rights defender Hortensia Telésforo Jiménez has repeatedly been the target of attacks, including physical and verbal assaults, and criminal proceedings linked to her work in defence of human rights. In addition, in 2022 and 2024, peaceful demonstrations organised by the Asamblea General Permanente del Pueblo de San Gregorio Atlapulco against projects and industries affecting the community’s water resources were suppressed through the excessive use of force by local authorities.

The pattern of repression against the Asamblea was also recognised by the Mexico City Human Rights Commission in Recommendation 01/2026, which documented violations of the right to protest, personal integrity and legal security of 27 individuals, including members of the Asamblea General Permanente del Pueblo de San Gregorio Atlapulco, related to a demonstration on 5 September 2024 in Xochimilco, and identified the Secretariat of Public Safety, the Xochimilco Mayor’s Office and the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office as the responsible authorities.

Front Line Defenders expresses its deep concern for the lives and safety of the human rights defenders of the Asamblea General Permanente del Pueblo de San Gregorio Atlapulco. These attacks violate their right to defend human rights and highlight a climate of impunity that encourages further attacks. Front Line Defenders is particularly concerned at the risk faced by the woman human rights defender Hortensia Telésforo Jiménez, given the repeated attacks against her. Front Line Defenders emphasises that combating impunity for attacks against human rights defenders is a key element in discouraging and preventing the recurrence of attacks that seek to limit the defence of human rights, and in ensuring that human rights defenders can continue their legitimate work without fear of reprisals.

Front Line Defenders urges the authorities of Mexico to:

1. Immediately investigate, thoroughly and with due diligence, the attacks committed against woman human rights defender Hortensia Telésforo Jiménez and members of the Asamblea General Permanente del Pueblo de San Gregorio Atlapulco, adopting a human rights-based approach, and to prosecute and punish those responsible, both as instigators and perpetrators;
2. Provide comprehensive protection to Hortensia Telésforo Jiménez, her family, and members of the Asamblea General Permanente del Pueblo de San Gregorio Atlapulco, enabling them to continue their human rights work;
3. Guarantee the full implementation of Recommendation 01/2026 of the Mexico City Human Rights Commission, issued in response to violations of the right to protest and other rights in the context of the demonstration on 5 September 2024 in San Gregorio Atlapulco, ensuring that attacks against those exercising their right to demonstrate and defending the territory and water are not repeated:
4. Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in Mexico are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions, including judicial harassment.