[Ppnews] Facing Escalating Protests, Chiapas Frees 30 Political Prisoners

[Political Prisoner News]

Facing Escalating Protests, Chiapas Frees 30 Political Prisoners




With 17 prisoners still inside, the Other 
Campaign declares April 3 an International Day of Action

http://www.narconews.com/Issue52/article3048.html



By Kristin Bricker
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

April 1, 2008

In what has been declared a stunning but partial 
victory for the Other Campaign, the Chiapas 
government freed thirty political prisoners last 
night in response to years of protests for their 
freedom, but not before giving some of them one 
last thorough beating. Seventeen prisoners remain 
incarcerated in Chiapas and Tabasco, thirteen of 
whom are on a hunger strike that has lasted 37 
days so far. Prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their 
families and supporters are gearing up for an 
increasingly tense battle for the freedom of the 
remaining political prisoners. Outside medical 
experts say that the symptoms the hunger strikers 
report and the amount of time they’ve gone 
without food has put their lives in danger, and 
that they may begin to die as early as Sunday. 
The state government, however, declared that it 
refuses to negotiate over the remaining prisoners.

The liberated prisoners have declared that they 
will remain in the plantón (permanent protest 
encampment) outside the state government 
headquarters in Tuxtla until all of their 
compañeros are free. They maintain their fearless 
resolve despite the government’s best efforts to 
keep them away, including threats and physical 
violence. Police refused to allow prisoners from 
the Cereso #17 prison in Catazaja to see the 
route they were taking to arrive at the 
government’s press conference where it released 
the prisoners as part of a media stunt. According 
to the recently released prisoners, the police 
beat them on the way to the press conference 
until their heads and arms were purple and they 
were bleeding. Their wrists were bound tightly 
with tape, cutting off circulation to their 
hands. After the press conference, the police 
loaded them back into a government vehicle, beat 
some of them again, and told them they were going 
to be returned to jail, but then released them.


Their Crime: Being Indigenous and Poor

The prisoners belong to a variety of 
organizations, including EZLN bases of support, 
adherents to the Zapatistas’ Other Campaign, an 
evangelical Christian organization, and the Party 
of the Democratic Revolution (PRD in its Spanish 
initials). The amount of time they’ve spent in 
jail varies: the two Zapatista prisoners in 
Tabasco have been imprisoned for twelve years, other prisoners for one year.

The prisoners were incarcerated under a wide 
array of circumstances. Paramilitary 
organizations accused some Zapatista support 
bases of crimes the paramilitaries themselves 
committed. Antonio Garcia Flores, for example, is 
a member of the EZLN and participated in the 
Zapatista’s 1994 uprising. He was arrested then 
in Ocosingo after members of the paramilitary 
organization Chinchulines turned him in, then 
later released under an amnesty law that freed 
all Zapatista prisoners. The Chinchulines later 
dissolved and integrated themselves into the 
Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and 
Campesino Rights (Oppdic in its Spanish 
initials), an anti-Zapatista paramilitary 
organization with a civilian face of legitimacy. 
In 1999, Oppdic members accused him of “robbery 
with violence,” and in March 2006 the government 
imprisoned him under those charges. After serving 
two years in prison for a crime he did not commit, he was released last night.

Other prisoners, such as Julio Cesar Perez Ruiz, 
who became an adherent to the Other Campaign in 
prison, were imprisoned because a crime was 
committed and the government needed to jail 
someone for it, and any poor indian would do. 
While Perez was working in his cornfield with his 
father, a homicide occurred 40 km away. Despite 
his alibi and witness accounts of other suspects 
entering the area of the homicide, the 
government, having no desire to do the necessary 
work to solve the murder of a poor campesino, 
decided to jail another poor campesino and wash 
its hands of the whole matter. Perez was not 
released last night and remains on hunger strike.

Most of the ex-prisoners report that they had 
inadequate legal defense and did not understand 
court proceedings because the government did not 
provide a translator into their native languages 
of Tsotsil and Tzetal. In this sense, the common 
thread that links all of the political prisoners is that they are poor indians.


Years of Struggle Inside and Outside the Prison Walls

According to Jose Perez Hernandez, father of 
Julio Cesar Perez Ruiz, the movement within the 
prison began when prisoners from various 
organizations began to talk to each other about 
how they were unjustly imprisoned. In this way 
they became aware of the epidemic of unjust 
imprisonment and their common willingness to do 
whatever it takes to win their freedom, so they decided to organize.

Two years ago, members of the prisoners 
organization “La Voz del Amate” in el Amate 
prison began a plantón within the prison. They 
camped out day and night on the prison grounds in 
a vocal protest of their unjust imprisonment, 
petitioned the state government for their 
release, and organized outside support through 
their families and activists who visited them in 
prison. Through their various organizational 
affiliations and outside support, they organized 
across four different prisons, including the 
Carcel Publica Municipal in Tacotalpa, Tabasco, 
where two Zapatistas are imprisoned. On February 
12, 2008, Zacario Hernandez Hernandez, a member 
of La Voz del Amate, stepped up the protest and 
declared a hunger strike to demand their freedom. 
This sparked an escalation in the prisoners’ 
tactics, and in the following weeks dozens more 
prisoners in the four jails joined the huger 
strike and plantónes. At its peak, 37 prisoners 
participated in the hunger strike with twelve 
more joining the plantón who couldn’t hunger 
strike for health reasons. Many other prisoners 
supported the plantónistas and protected them from the prison guards.

On the March 24, the 29th day of the hunger 
strike, families and friends of the prisoners 
declared a planton outside the Palacio de 
Gobierno, the Chiapas state house in Tuxtla. They 
hung signs on the walls and windows of the 
Palacio and left coffins on the front steps under 
a banner that says, “This is how the government 
wants us to end up.” A week later, on March 29, 
Other Campaign adherents from Chiapas, Oaxaca, 
and Mexico City marched on the Palacio de 
Gobierno and encircled it in protest. The 
following day dozens of supporters and family 
members attempted to visit the prisoners, but 
after taking their IDs and recording all of their 
personal information, the prison authorities 
suddenly declared Sunday a families-only visit 
day and turned away all but one non-family visitor.

On March 31 the government announced that it 
planned to release 137 prisoners at a press 
conference that evening, including some of the 
hunger strikers and plantónistas. In a staged 
media spectacle called “Freedom to Do Justice,” 
the government released the prisoners and 
unilaterally ended negotiations over the 
remaining prisoners due to its claim that all 
unjustly imprisoned Chiapans were now free. This 
contradicts Gov. Juan Sabines’ position up until 
said press conference, wherein he denied that 
there were any political prisoners in Chiapas. In 
the press conference the government laid out 
fruit and yogurt for the prisoners, hoping that 
the media would snap pictures of hunger strikers 
accepting food and reconciliation from the 
government. Refusing to be pawns in the 
government’s public relations strategy, the 
released hunger strikers refused all government 
food and only ate once they were released and 
joined the plantón. Family members of the 
prisoners protested the press conference, 
repeatedly interrupting government officials with 
chants of, “We’re not all here! Other prisoners 
are missing!” and “Sabines! Listen up! The prisoners don’t sell out!”

Journalists and activists want the list of all 
137 pardoned prisoners because they suspect that 
the government used this opportunity to free many paramilitary members.


The Struggle Continues

When the family members declared their plantón 
outside the Palacio de Gobierno, they agreed that 
none of them would leave until all of the 
protesting prisoners were free, even if some 
individual family members were released. Upon 
learning that some but not all of them would be 
released, the prisoners met and agreed that 
prisoners inside the jails would continue the 
plantónes and hunger strike, and those on the 
outside would immediately join the plantón outside the Palacio de Gobierno.

The 
<http://www.narconews.com/otroperiodismo/chiapas/en.html>Other 
Campaign in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, 
has also vowed to continue their protests until 
all prisoners are freed. Given the striking 
prisoners’ grave health situation and the notice 
that this might be the last week to act before 
prisoners begin to die of starvation, the Other 
Campaign will hold a march and procession of 
coffins to the central plaza in San Cristobal on 
Thursday, April 3. The Other Campaign declared 
Thursday, April 3, an international day of action 
for the freedom of the striking prisoners and 
calls on activists outside Mexico to stage 
protests and actions at Mexican embassies and consulates.

Read more from Kristin Bricker at 
<http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/>My Word is My Weapon

Más – Videos en Español: Testimonios de los 
Familiares de los Presos Políticos al Plantón 
<http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=yIpRRQYSSEg>Parte 
1 y 
<http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=yOtSguc2QnQ>Parte 
2 por <http://mx.youtube.com/user/EvaBlancaProduccion>Eva Blanca Produccion




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415 863-9977

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