Digna Ochoa y Plácido, was shot dead in her office in the center of Mexico City on October 19, 2001.   A  former Roman Catholic nun, Digna Ochoa was working as the head of the legal division of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Center for Human Rights (PRODH) for many years on cases in which public officials, including members of the Offices of the Attorney General and the armed forces, had been implicated in serious human rights violations.   De g. à d. : Le bâtonnier Bertrand FAVREAU, président de l'IDHAE, M. Jesus OCHOA y PLÁCIDO, le bâtonnier Jean CRUYPLANTS bâtonnier de l'Ordre français des Avocats au barreau de Bruxelles, le bâtonnier FLECHEUX, président de l'Institut des Droits de l'Homme du Barreau de Paris.

Digna Ochoa was one of the most prominent Mexican human rights defenders; her clients included environmental activists Rodolfo Montiel Flores and Teodoro Cabrera García -arrested on gun and drug charges-and accused terrorists Alejandro, Héctor and Antonio Cerezo Contreras.

By the mid 1990s, Digna and her colleagues at the PRODH, had one a reputation as a centre of principled opposition to institutionalized abuse, particularly in the emerging hot zones of Mexico’s indigenous south. As a result, beginning in 1995 they were targeted for an escalating campaign of harassment, intimidation and violence. In 1999, Digna was abducted twice and once held hostage in her home for nine hours of interrogation before being left to die, bound hand and foot in front of an opened gas valve. On this occasion, she managed to free herself and escape.

Digna Ochoa was repeatedly threatened, twice kidnapped, tortured but the Mexican government never adequately dealt with repeated threats leveled against her, and the investigation undertaken by the Office of the Attorney General was unduly slow and cumbersome.

Human rights groups were furious last year when a previous special prosecutor, Renato Sales Heredia, first advanced the suicide hypothesis. Sales ended up resigning.

In a report presented officially on July 19, 2003, Mexican special prosecutor Margarita Guerra y Tejada concluded that the shooting death of human rights attorney Digna Ochoa y Plácido on October 19, 2001, was a suicide. Guerra and a team of experts said ballistics studies showed that given the location of the body in her Mexico City office, only Ochoa could have fired the shot to the head that killed her. Guerra also claimed that Ochoa suffered from chronic depression and other psychological problems and had faked a kidnapping in 1988.

The long-awaited ruling immediately drew criticism from the many international human rights officials who knew Ochoa. Ochoa’s family announced on July 19 that they would seek a federal injunction to keep the local Federal District (DF, Mexico City) prosecutors from closing off the investigation of other hypotheses.

Bárbara Zamora Lopez, also a leading human rights lawyer in Mexico city, is a former colleague of Digna Ochoa  in the law firm Tierra y Libertad (Land and Freedom) which they set up together.    On Monday, March 18th, 2002, Bárbara Zamora received emailed death threats that, though elliptical in their content, were clear in their meaning, and that in their wording closely resembled death threats received by the late Digna Ochoa and human rights lawyer Pilar Noriega in 1996 when they were both members of the legal team of the Miguel Agustín Pro Human Rights Centre. Although she received a number of death threats during 2001, this is the first death threat that Bárbara Zamora has received this year. It goes without saying that, especially after the assassination of Digna Ochoa on October 19th 2001, threats of this kind must be treated with the utmost seriousness. De g. à d. :Le bâtonnier FLECHEUX, président de l'Institut des droits de l'Homme du barreau de Paris,Mme Bárbara ZAMORA, le bâtonnier Jean CRUYPLANTS bâtonnier de l'Ordre français des Avocats au barreau de Bruxelles.

On October 30th 2001, in reaction to the assassination of Digna Ochoa, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights requested the Mexican government to take special protective measures for the security of Bárbara Zamora. The government has still not fully complied with this request. An agreement regarding the form that the protective measures were to take was to have been signed by the two parties, that is to say by Bárbara Zamora and the government. However, although a verbal agreement was reached in November 2001, the government has not yet produced the final written text for signature. On March 20th, Bárbara Zamora submitted her written comments on this situation to the Ministry of the Interior.

With regard to the opening of an investigation into the source of the emailed threats, Bárbara Zamora has deplored the slowness of the Office of the Attorney General of the Federal District (Mexico City) in reacting to her official complaint, which was made on March 19th. It appears that the Attorney General did not initially accord the matter a great deal of importance, reportedly saying that it did not seem to be a death threat.

Bárbara Zamora also  rejected Margarita Guerra 's  appointment, arguing her past experience as a city prosecutor will hinder her ability to handle the case impartially. She said she would ask officials to name a prosecutor without ties to the capital's law enforcement.

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The Jury called the Mexican authorities to  ensure an effective, independent and thorough investigation into the  killing of Digna Ochoa  and  expressing deep concern for the safety of Bárbara Zamora and urged  to give her immediately an appropriate protection.