Mexico's Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (PRODH) held a press conference in Mexico City on Oct. 23 to announce the release of a report on the alleged torture of Israel Arzate Meléndez, a resident of Ciudad Juárez in the northern state of Chihuahua, by state police and the military. According to the report, Tortured, Imprisoned and Innocent, two soldiers arrested Arzate on Feb. 3, 2010, charging him with participation in the massacre of 15 youths in Ciudad Juárez's Villas de Salvárcar neighborhood the previous Jan. 30. The report says the soldiers took Arzate to a military installation, stripped him naked, tied up his hands and feet, placed a plastic bag over his head and tortured him with electric shocks to get him to confess to involvement in the killings.

A panel of Chile's Supreme Court of Justice voted 4-1 on Oct. 17 to approve a request for the extradition of former US Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis to stand trial for his involvement in the murders of two US citizens, journalist Charles Horman and graduate student Frank Teruggi, in the days after the Sept. 11, 1973 military coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende Gossens. Chilean investigative judge Jorge Zepeda asked for the extradition in November 2011 when he indicted Davis for allegedly failing to prevent the murders; the indictment was based in part on declassified US documents. The court's one dissenter held that a 15-year statute of limitations applied in the case, but the majority held that the charges were for a crime against humanity and therefore were not subject to the limitation.

By a unanimous vote, on Oct. 24 Chile's Supreme Court of Justice overturned the convictions of two young Mapuche prisoners for the attempted homicide of Gen. Iván Besmalinovic, a commander of the carabineros militarized police, in November 2011. The two prisoners had been on a liquids-only hunger strike along with two other Mapuche prisoners since Aug. 27 in the city of Angol in the southern region of Araucanía. After receiving word of the court's decision, the hunger strikers met with members of their home community, Wente Winkul Mapu, and on Oct. 25 they decided to end their fast.

New fighting was reported from the southern Philippines island group of Mindanao Oct. 29, despite a recent deal on regional autonomy aimed at ending the decades-long insurgency. Former Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebels accused the Philippine military of attacking its members in western Sulu province, sparking a gun battle that left four soldiers dead and several more wounded. The MNLF said marine troops attacked its followers at a village in Patikul municipality, who were only harvesting coconuts. But the military's Western Mindanao Command insisted that troops had clashed with militants of the jihadist group Abu Sayyaf. The army was reportedly sent into the area after reports that Abu Sayyaf's kidnap victims had been spotted. The military said two militants were also killed in the clash. (See map.) (Mindanao Examiner, Oct. 29)

The government of Indonesia this month responded to UN recommendations to recognize the rights of its indigenous peoples by claiming that none live in the country. In a response to the UN's Universal Periodic Review, a four–year human rights check-up for all countries, Indonesia said, "The Government of Indonesia supports the promotion and protection of indigenous people worldwide… Indonesia, however, does not recognize the application of the indigenous peoples concept… in the country."

Local campesinos reported Oct. 26 that thousands of young trout were found dead in the Río Llaucano, in Peru's northern region of Cajamarca, and blame contamination from the ginat Yanacocha gold mine that sits atop the watersahed. The campesinos held a press conference in the town of Bambamarca to announce  thier grave fears for the safety of the region's waters. The Llaucano is a tributary of the Marañon, one of the main rivers that drains into the Amazon. The fish were found washed up near the communities of Santa Rosa in Bambamarca province and La Paccha in Chota province. (Servindi, Oct. 26)

Hundreds of campeisnos staged a protest outside the Governor's Palace in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua last week, following the Oct. 22 double murder of two leading members of the activist organization El Barzón. Ismael Solorio Urrutia and his wife Manuela Martha Solís Contreras were shot while driving in in thier truck on the highway near Ciudad Cuautémoc, west of the state capital, Chihuahua City. Supporters are demanding a face-to-face meeting with Chihuahua's Gov. César Duarte to demand justice in the case, asserting that Solorio had faced numerous threats and attacks in recent weeks. On Oct. 13, Solorio and his son Eric were beaten by men that activists claim were in the pay of Vancouver-based mining company MAG Silver. Solorio and fellow Barzonistas had been opposing the installation of the company's El Cascabel mine in the municipality of Buenaventura. The Barzonistas say the mine is illegally slated for Ejído Benito Juárez, a collective campesino agricultural holding. The site is belived to hold a rich vein of the rare element molybdenum.

An Oct. 8 report on Yale University's Environment 360 website, "In the Land of the Maya, A Battle for a Vital Forest" by William Allen, states that "In Guatemala's vast Maya Biosphere Reserve, conservation groups are battling to preserve a unique rainforest now under threat from Mexican drug cartels, Salvadoran drug gangs, and Chinese-backed groups illegally logging prime tropical hardwoods." The Maya Biosphere Reserve covers approximately the northern third of what Allen calls the "Selva Maya," Central America's largest remaining expanse of rainforest, which stretches across the northern half of Guatemala and also extends into the Mexican state of Chiapas to the west and the country of Belize to the east. More taditionally, the forest is called El Petén within Guatemala and the Selva Lacandona on the Mexican side of the border. Allen cites Guatemala's National Council for Protected Areas (CONAP) to the effect that international criminal networks are now the biggest threat to the Selva Maya. Cattle ranching and logging have long been eating into rainforest—but now in a convergence with organized crime: