Two undocumented Cuban migrants being held at a jail in the border town of Tapachula in Mexico's southern Chiapas state were hospitalized after 21 days on hunger strike May 26. The local Fray Matias de Cordova y Ordoñez Human Rights Center said that the 11 jailed migrants—nine Cubans, a Guatemalan and a Dominican—went on hunger strike to demand their liberty after being arrested following what authorities called a "riot" (motín) at a detainment center of Mexico's National Immigration Institute (INM). The detained migrants were awaiting transfer to Mexico City after being apprehended at the Guatemalan border. The "riot" seems to have been an escape attempt, in which nine migrants succeeded in fleeing the detainment center. (EFE, May 26; Noticias Sin, Dominican Republic, May 24)

Some 500 people marched in Guadalajara, capital of the western Mexican state of Jalisco, on May 20 to demand that the federal and state governments honor their commitments to protect land that is sacred to the Wixárika (Huichol) indigenous group. The protesters' main focus was the 22 concessions that the federal Economy Secretariat has given to First Majestic Silver Corp (FMS), a Canadian mining company, to extract gold and silver in some 6,000 hectares around Real de Catorce in the north central state of San Luis Potosí. They say this was done without the consent of affected indigenous groups.

The Mexican government is violating its own laws on genetically modified organisms (GMO) in the way it handles experimental corn crops, according to a complaint the Greenpeace organization has filed with federal environmental protection authorities. The group charges that the government has failed to monitor experimental transgenic corn adequately, has allowed the corn to be planted on private farms, and hasn't ensured that the plants are disposed of properly after cultivation.

Nine indigenous Mixe residents at the remote Oaxaca municipality of Santiago Choápam were killed and some 20 wounded when they were ambushed on a mountain road May 14. The ambush took place near the hamlet of El Portillo as the campesinos were making their way from their homes at La Tani hamlet to the municipal center for a political rally ahead of extraordinary elections called for Choápam after the results of December polling were annulled due to reported irregularities. The community, near the Veracruz state line, is harshly divided between two political factions—one led by the family of a former state deputy with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Dámaso Nicolás, the other by César Mateos of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Mateos accuses Nicolás of being a "cacique" (political boss) who maintains power over the municipality through corruption and intimidation, despite the fact that it elects its leaders through the traditional indigenous process called usos y costumbres (uses and customs), in which candidates ostensibly have no party affiliation. (Cronica de Hoy, OEM-Informex, May 15; Excelsior, Diario Oaxaca, May 14)

Quetzalcóatl Leija Herrera, the president of the Center of Studies and Projects for Integral Human Development (Ceprodehi) in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, was found dead in the early morning of May 4 near the main plaza in Chilpancingo, the state capital. According to the Forensic Medical Service, he was been badly beaten, especially on the head, and died of the injuries.

Tens of thousands of people participated in a silent "March for Peace With Justice and Dignity" in Mexico City on May 8 to call for an end to the US-backed militarization of Mexico's fight against drug trafficking. Protesters, most of them dressed in white, carried signs reading: "No more blood," "Justice," "Peace," "Let's stop the bullets," "Life isn't trash" and, above all, "We've had it up to here" (estamos hasta la madre). More than 35,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa sent troops into the streets soon after taking office in December 2006.

Rescue crews recovered the last of 14 bodies May 8 from the Pozo 3 coal mine hit by a gas explosion in Mexico's northern Coahuila state, while Labor Secretary Javier Lozano called for an overhaul of mine safety in Mexico and the federal Prosecutor General opened an investigation into the disaster. Mexican officials said the May 3 blast was caused by a buildup of gas. A teenage boy who was evidently employed illegally at the mine, Jesús Fernando Lara Ruiz, had his right arm blown off in the explosion. The National Union of Mine and Metal Workers and the Like of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM) said the mine's work force was not unionized, and protested the "completely unsafe conditions under which coal mines operate in the country, and especially in this region known as the coal belt."

As momentum builds for the May 8 protest against violence and impunity in Mexico, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) announced its support for the movement started by poet Javier Sicilia. In a communiqué dated April 28, the EZLN leadership declared it would wholeheartedly support the struggle by conducting a silent march of Zapatista base communities in the Chiapas highland city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas on May 7.