Women changing lives:
Digna Ochoa

By Jacqueline Kozin

Mexican human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa was threatened with death many times. She knew that if she kept doing what she did, she could very well be killed. That did not stop her, but the gun that killed her on October 19, 2001 did. She was found in her office with gun wounds to her thigh and head.
She spent her life fighting for those who were victims of injustice. And for 37-year-old Ochoa, injustice was embodied in her father's struggle to secure a better livelihood for others. Her interest in studying law developed when she overheard a conversation between her trade union leader father and his colleagues. They were discussing their need for more lawyers to help their cause. Her desire to combat injustice developed from her father's wrongful imprisonment and his later disappearance and torture.
After graduating law school, Ochoa became a prosecutor but left when asked to prosecute someone she knew was innocent. She opened an office with other lawyers to help work against the system she strongly opposed. With her first defense case came the first death threats. Later, she was kidnapped and held captive by the police. After a month of psychological and physical torture, she escaped but was not deterred from continuing her efforts.
By the request of Ochoa's family, she left the region and went to Mexico City to study human rights. After taking some courses, she became a lawyer for the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Center for Human Rights (PRODH). Many of her prominent cases, which included Zapatista guerillas, were those which involved allegations of military torture. As her fight against injustice began anew, so did the death threats. Fortunately, she was able to manage her fear through the support of a local religious community.
She experienced torture again when she was knocked unconscious, blindfolded, and tied up at her home. After nine hours of violent interrogation, her abusers exposed a gas pipe and left her for dead. She escaped and was not dissuaded from her work.
She received wide recognition for her defending two peasant farmers who protested logging to local politicians and later arrested on questionable drug and gun charges. Although official findings confirmed the two men were tortured and wrongfully detained, their appeals were unsuccessful. It was not until three weeks after Ochoa's death that Mexican President Vicente Fox pardoned them on humanitarian grounds and ordered their release.
Many have directed their demands for justice and the capture of Ochoa's killers to President Fox, who promised during his presidential campaign to put an end to human rights abuses by the military and federal law enforcement agencies. Although the guilty parties have not yet been found, President Fox maintains that a full investigation has been launched.
Before she died, Ochoa commented that she believed the military was responsible for the death threats she received this past September as well as the kidnappings she had experienced previously. Some feel if the threats were actually investigated, Ochoa would still be alive today continuing her fight to protect victims of human rights abuses.

(This story is reprinted from the Digital Freedom Network, http://dfn.org.)