The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mrs Mary Robinson has called on Mexican authorities to investigate the killing of a top human rights lawyer.
Mrs Robinson said the murder of Ms Digna Ochoa, found shot dead in her Mexico City office on Friday, came just as intimidation of activists in the country was being taken seriously.
Ms Ochoa (38) had won acclaim for defending the most vulnerable in Mexico, including imprisoned rebels from southern Chiapas state and two peasant ecologists, widely viewed as political prisoners.
"The High Commissioner firmly condemns the assassination last Friday of Digna Ochoa . . . [and] calls on Mexican authorities to shed full light on this assassination and to hand over its authors to justice", Mrs Robinson's spokeswoman told a news briefing in Geneva.
"Her assassination is all the more tragic in that it threatens the hint of hope which has appeared recently since harassment and intimidation of human rights defenders is finally being taken seriously," she said.