Tlachinollan, winner of the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, helped secure the release of Maximino García Catarino, an indigenous leader unjustly incarcerated for over six weeks in Guerrero state. García Catarino faced charges for suspected homicide and was imprisoned based on conflicting testimony. García Catarino was liberated when a higher court threw out the charges that had allowed authorities to incarcerate him. His case is representative of a pattern of intimidation against indigenous leaders in the region that Tlachinollan is documenting, litigating, and making more visible to improve the justice system’s handling of cases involving indigenous people, In another recent case, Tlachinollan defended before the Inter American Court of Human Rights two Tlapanecan women raped by the military. The Court ordered the state to make reparations and implement institutional reforms.
