But Gabino Cue even failed to convince his fellow lawmakers to pass a resolution calling on President Calderón to guarantee the safety of human rights workers who are in Oaxaca investigating those very accusations.

The language of the resolution echoed a petition from the Mexican Human Rights Defense League claiming that its members are being harassed by Oaxaca state officials. Other human rights organizations have voiced similar concerns.

"A dirty war has been unleashed in the state against more than 40 non-government human rights organizations," Cue said.

Local, national and international groups are in Oaxaca to investigate abuse claims by the families of protesters rounded up in a Nov. 25 sweep.

Those complaints, many aired Tuesday in a public forum at the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico City, include forced sex acts, beatings, death threats, humiliation and unsanitary conditions.

At the forum Tuesday, the mother of a student who had been detained read a statement from her son alleging that at least 15 young persons were sexually abused as they were transported to a prison in the state of Nayarit, more than 1,000 kilometers away.

Oaxaca state officials have not responded to the charges, which surfaced this week. Federal Interior Secretary Francisco Ramírez Acuña pointedly refused to comment when confronted by the press Tuesday.

More than 200 people were arrested on Nov. 25 by federal police, who had moved into Oaxaca in October to quell a six-month uprising by activists demanding the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz. They were detained in several different prisons in and out of the state. About three dozen are still in custody.

Though it achieved its objective of calming Oaxaca City´s streets, the crackdown was controversial. Several recent reports from human rights groups say many of the arrests were arbitrary.

"The government was so eager to criminalize the social movement in Oaxaca that it rounded up people who weren´t even involved in it," Cue said, speaking on the same Chamber floor where the forum on human rights abuses had been held the day before.

Congress is in recess, but a joint Permanent Committee of senators and deputies meets on Wednesdays, and can pass non-binding resolutions, known as "puntos de acuerdo." Cue´s resolution urging protection of human rights workers in Oaxaca failed to get the two-thirds needed as an "urgent" measure.

But Cue was able to push the Oaxaca crisis back onto the public agenda, insisting the relative quiet there belies lingering tensions.

"Eight months after the conflict started ... a sad, disconsolate atmosphere prevails in Oaxaca," he said. "Nobody is in jail for any of the more than 15 murders; the only ones behind bars are people who participated in the popular movement."

Cue, whom Ruiz defeated in the disputed 2004 Oaxaca gubernatorial election, is a member of the Convergence Party, allied politically with the major opposition force in the legislature, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). The PRD has been calling for Ruiz´s ouster since shortly after the Oaxaca unrest began in May 2006, and indicated Wednesday that it may appeal to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to try Ruiz for crimes against humanity. The idea had been proposed by a PRD deputy, Claudia Lilia Cruz.

"These things shouldn´t happen in our country," said PRD national spokesman Gerardo Fernández Noroña, referring to the alleged torturing of detainees, the murders of protesters and other accusations against Ruiz. "The only way to put an end to them is in the courts, national or international, so the International Court of Justice shouldn´t be ruled out."