E/CN.4/2003/8/Add.3 page 6 Introduction 1. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which was established by the Commission on Human Rights in its resolution 1991/42 and whose mandate was defined in Commission resolutions 1997/50 and 2000/36, visited Mexico from 27 October to 10 November 2002 at the invitation of the Mexican Government. The delegation consisted of the Chairperson of the Working Group, Mr. Louis Joinet (head of delegation) and Ms. Soledad Villagra de Biedermann (member of the Working Group), as well as the Secretary of the Working Group, a staff member from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva and two United Nations interpreters. 2. In 2001, the Government of Mexico issued an invitation to all non-treaty thematic mechanisms of the Commission to visit Mexico. In response to the invitation, the Working Group requested a specific invitation to make an official visit to Mexico in 2002. Permission was granted immediately and the visit enabled the Working Group to meet with federal officials from the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, as well as with officials from the States of Guerrero, Jalisco, Mexico and Oaxaca and the Federal District, to talk to representatives of various national and local NGOs and to visit various detention centres and migrant holding centres, where the delegation was able to talk in private and in the absence of witnesses to hundreds of prisoners and inmates of the holding centres. 3. The Working Group would like to express its particular gratitude to the Government of Mexico, particularly the Under-Secretary for Human Rights and Democracy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and her officials, who accompanied the Working Group during all its meetings with the authorities, and to the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the United Nations Office at Geneva for their full cooperation, openness and support before, during and after the visit. It would also like to thank United Nations officials in Mexico, including the Resident Coordinator in the country, the chief and staff of the technical cooperation programme of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the press officer of the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) and the representatives of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Mexico, for substantive and logistical support. Special mention should be made of the many Mexican NGOs which began working towards the success of the visit well before it took place. I. PROGRAMME OF THE VISIT 4. The Working Group was able to visit 15 detention facilities: the Oriente women’s remand prison and men’s remand prison in the Federal District; the facilities in the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Colonia San Salvador Xochimanca, Atzcapotzalco; the migrant holding centre in Iztapalapa; the La Palma federal centre for social rehabilitation in Almoloya de Juárez, Mexico State; the Colonia Narvarte Diagnostic Centre for Minors in the Federal District; the migrant holding centre at the international airport in Mexico City; the federal centre for social rehabilitation in Puente Grande, Jalisco; the social rehabilitation centre in Iguala, Guerrero; the men’s social rehabilitation centre in Acapulco; the women’s social rehabilitation centre in