On June 30 a five-member panel of Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) announced that it had decided by a four-to-one vote to release campesino activist Ignacio del Valle Medina and 11 other members of the Front of the Peoples in Defense of the Land (FPDT) who had been imprisoned since a confrontation in May 2006 between México state police and residents of San Salvador Atenco municipality northeast of Mexico City. The justices ruled that the state's charges against the activists—for kidnapping state officials—were based on "false and feeble premises" and used "impermissible evidence."

The 32nd annual Pride march in the Mexican capital, held on June 26, began with a moment of silence for journalist and activist Carlos Monsivais, who died on June 19 at the age of 72. Speakers noted Mexico's many famous LGBT writers and artists, including Salvador Novo and Frida Kahlo. "This march isn't about partying, it's about struggle and protest" was the slogan of the contingent that started the march from the Angel of Independence down the Paseo de la Reforma. Many marchers were calling for the right to same-sex marriage, established in Mexico City on Dec. 21, to be extended to the rest of the country. Contingents from outside Mexico City included The Two Mommies organization from the northeastern state of Nuevo León and Catholics for the Right to Decide, based in the states of Querétaro, Oaxaca and Guerrero, which calls for education to prevent discrimination. (Milenio, Mexico, June 27)

Mexican campesino rights activist América del Valle applied for political asylum at the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico City on the morning of June 23, citing "four years of unceasing political persecution." Del Valle is a member of the Front of the Peoples in Defense of the Land (FPDT), a campesino movement that formed in 2001 and successfully opposed plans to build a new international airport on farmlands in and around San Salvador Atenco municipality northeast of Mexico City in México state.

Mexican singer Sergio Vega AKA "El Shaka" was shot dead June 27—only hours after he had issued a statement denying reports that he had been murdered. Vega was on his way to a concert in Alhuey, Sinaloa, when gunmen opened fire on his red Cadillac as it passed through the pueblo of Barobampo. "It's happened to me for years now, someone tells a radio station or a newspaper I've been killed, or suffered an accident," Vega told entertainment website La Oreja hours before his death. (El Debate, Mazatlán, June 27; BBC News, CBS News, June 28)

Mexico's independent labor movement reacted angrily to the government's use of hundreds of police agents the night of June 6 to break a three-year strike at the giant Cananea copper mine in the northern state of Sonora. Later the same night, police stormed the sealed Pasta de Conchos mine in the northern state of Coahuila, where family members were protesting the failure to retrieve the bodies of miners killed in a methane explosion on Feb. 19, 2006; only two of the 65 bodies have been recovered. Both mines are owned by the powerful Grupo México corporation.

Gunmen shot and killed Jesús Manuel Lara Rodríguez, mayor of the Mexican border town of Guadalupe as his wife and child watched on June 19. Lara Rodríguez was hit by 10 bullets from an assault rifle as he walked from his car outside his second home in Ciudad Juárez. An outspoken opponent of the drug cartels' reign of terror in the region, Lara had received numerous death threats. He had recently purchased the home in Juárez, the closest city to Guadalupe, believing his family would be safer there. (CNN, El Dairio, Juárez, June 20)

After three days of searching, Mexican army troops and Quintana Roo state police on June 18 discovered 12 bodies in four cenotes (natural wells) near the Cancún airport. Last week, six bodies were found in another presumed narcofosa (narco-grave) in Cancún. Authorities were apparently tipped off to mass graves by arrested sicarios (assassins), and 19 more have been arrested in their connection. Among those detained are a former member of the Kaibiles, the Guatemalan army's special forces, and an ex-agent of the Cancún municipal police. Authorities did not say which faction the detained belong to, but press accounts have identified them as members of Los Zetas. (El Universal, AFP, June 18; Diario de Quintana Roo, June 17)

More than 200 people have been killed over the past seven days in Mexico's most violent week since President Felipe Calderón unleashed federal forces against the country's warring drug cartels. In the latest slayings, on June 16 Nuevo León state investigators in the Monterrey suburb of Apodaca recovered the bodies of five municipal police officers who had been abducted at dawn from their homes by armed men. Their bodies, with signs of torture, were found in an abandoned plot of land with a threatening "narco-message." One had been decapitated. Dozens of police have been killed in the Monterrey area in recent months. Authorities also said an armed commando executed three local youths in the Monterrey barrio of Primero de Mayo. (El Universal, El Financiero, Houston Chronicle, June 16)