English below.
Autonomous Community of Cheran K’eri
July 6, 2025
Day 5 on high alert;
In defense of our autonomy and self-determination.
Expression of our collective belief:
Since the early hours of July 2, 2025, the Cherán K’eri community has been the victim of a violent armed attack. In response to this armed attack on our communal security, our community patrol bravely and with dignity resisted this aggression. As a result of these events, the community activated communal security protocols by setting up barricades to protect our territory and our way of continuing to live with dignity.
Cherán has been the target of various attempts at aggression and dispossession. For this reason, since 2011, we have expelled the political parties, loggers, and organized crime groups that plundered our forests and murdered our people with the complicity of state and federal authorities.
Fourteen years into our fight for autonomy and self-determination, we have built a legitimate and legal system of Indigenous self-government and self-defense recognized by our community and the Mexican Constitution. This system has been built from our campfires and communal assemblies as the highest authority, based on our customs and practices.
We hereby inform the Indigenous peoples, communities, and collectives who are resisting in the hope of building a world with justice and security, the free media, and alternative media outlets who have joined us in this struggle, so that we can continue resisting for our autonomy and self-determination. We thank you for your expressed solidarity through public statements, which confidently give us the strength to move forward.
Furthermore, we emphasize that the territories of Indigenous communities are not war zones; our territories are not commodities; Indigenous Peoples deserve to live in peace and with dignity.
For justice for our fallen, for our communal security, for the reconstruction of our communal autonomy
Not one step backwards!
Cherán lives!
Urgent Announcement:
We Denounce the Armed Attack Against our Community
Since the early hours of today, July 2, 2025, the community of Cherán K’eri has been the victim of a violent armed attack by unknown individuals who attempted to enter through the Rancho del Pino and Cerrito del Aire areas. In response, our Community Patrol (an autonomous security body established by our system of self-government) resisted the attack and activated barricades to protect the population. To date, one member of the Patrol has been killed and one injured, a fact that fills us with indignation, sadness, and rage.
This attack is not an isolated incident. It is part of an escalation of violence that has worsened in Michoacán, a state where organized crime fights for territory with complete impunity, severely affecting rural and indigenous communities. In recent weeks, attacks have intensified in various regions, including the P’urhépecha Plateau, where communities such as Nahuatzen, Arantepacua, Capácuaro, and Santa Fe de la Laguna have also been subjected to threats, armed incursions, and territorial dispossession.
Cherán has been the target of various attempted attacks since we expelled the political parties, loggers, and organized crime groups that plundered our forests and murdered our people with the complicity of state and federal authorities in 2011. Fourteen years after this fight, we have built a legally and constitutionally recognized system of Indigenous self-governance, based on our assemblies, our bonfires, and our community-based forms of justice and organization.
Today, this attack seeks to strike directly at the heart of our autonomy and of all People who fight to defend life.
We speak out to denounce these acts of violence that seek to sow fear, fragment the community, and dismantle the territorial defense processes that we have so painstakingly sustained. It is no coincidence that we are attacked when we defend the forest, water, and life. Extractive, criminal, and political interests converge to attack those who refuse to submit.
We reject any attempt at armed intervention, whether by organized crime, loggers, or any other actor who, protected by impunity, seeks to dismantle our community’s ways of life. We demand full respect for our right to self-government, self-determination, and community security.
We hold the Mexican State, and in particular the federal and state governments, responsible for their omission, complicity, and silence in the face of this new aggression. Where are the protection mechanisms for Indigenous peoples? Where is the real commitment to peace?
While the federal government extols a Justice Plan for Indigenous Peoples that was not built with us in mind and does not respond to our realities, violence prevails in our territories. While constitutional reforms on justice and security are announced, we, the people, remain unprotected, exposed to death, dispossession, and impunity. What justice are we talking about if our own forms of organization and defense are not guaranteed or respected?
We call on the media, social organizations, human rights defenders, sister communities, and civil society to remain vigilant, actively express solidarity, disseminate information, and reject the events unfolding in Cherán. Let us not allow indifference to silence our voices or cover up the violence we, Indigenous People, are experiencing.
We deserve to live in peace.
Our territories are not a war zone.
Not one step back in the defense of our autonomy!
For the life, dignity, and memory of those who have fallen in defense of our territory,
Cherán K’eri, a Purhépecha community in resistance.