Source La Jornada

The Center for Human Rights Zeferino Ladrillero issued an urgent action after the killing of forestry engineer Jesus Javier Ramos Arriola, who was shot dead last Friday, 28 September 2018, in front of his home in the town of San Rafael. A single gunman called to his house and shot him at close range when he opened the door.

The organisation highlighted the fact that in recent months there had been a series of death threats against a group of environmentalists opposed to the over exploitation of El Tenayo hill, from which stone was being quarried for construction works at the New International Airport, Mexico (NAIM) The human rights organisation appealed to the authorities to find both the perpetrators and the intellectual authors of the murder, and to provide effective protection for activists opposed to the construction of the NAIM.

Jesus Javier, had been a trenchant critic of the members of the Ejidal Committee of Tlalmanalco for allowing the over exploitation of El Tenayo hill, which is considered part of the aquifer recharge zone in the foothills of the Iztaccíhuatl volcano. Jesus Javier’s colleagues said that the General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection has been consistently violated, given the excess extraction of sand and gravel which is then sent to the site of the former Lake of Texcoco where the airport is being built.