Marcelo Pérez

Marcelo Pérez Pérez (January 17, 1974 – October 20, 2024) was a Mexican diocesan priest and Indigenous rights activist.

Life Pérez was born on 17 January 1974 in San Andrés Larráinzar, Chiapas. He was the son of indigenous Tzotzil peasants and was religious from a young age. He was sent to Chenalhó in 2001, where he met and was inspired by survivors of the 1997 Acteal massacre. After the indigenous self-defense group kidnapped twenty-one people on 26 July 2021, Pérez pleaded with them to release the hostages, some of whom were members of the rival clan. However, only two people were found and no information emerged on the other nineteen. His work made him the target of violence; in 2008, someone set fire to his parish house, and in December 2010, he was beaten.

After receiving death threats for his work, his diocese transferred him in October 2021 to the Guadalupe parish in San Cristóbal de las Casas.

In September 2024, he participated in a Pilgrimage for Peace in Tuxtla Gutiérrez.

Death On October 20, 2024, after Pérez finished celebrating his first mass of the day, he was shot and killed by two men riding a motorcycle while he was driving alone to preside over another mass in the neighborhood of Cuxtitali in San Cristóbal de las Casas.

A mass in his honor was held on October 21 in Spanish and Tzotzil.

Reactions Pérez Pérez's murder was denounced by a number of human rights and religious groups, including the Mexican office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Jesuit Order in Mexico, Chiapas governor Rutilio Escandón called the killing "cowardly" and federal security secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez Velázquez promised there "will be no impunity" for the responsible parties.