Update on Political Prisoners

[photo: Indymedia Chiapas. "Federal Police, Assassins!")]

Update, Wednesday May 10, 2006: The permanent sit-in outside Almoloyita, where those detained May 3 and 4 in San Salvador Atenco are being held, continues, now with added intensity and mobilization as today expires the 72 hour period in which the detained must be formally charged or set free. There are apparently two sets of charges. For those from Atenco detained in the May 3 highway confrontation: “delinquent association” and “attack on channels of communication”; for those detained May 4 during the police raid on Atenco
(this group from the community as well as supporters of the Other Campaign), those same two charges plus a charge “equivalent to kidnapping.” [photo from Independent Media Center Mexico City: Indigenous Masagua women protesting outside the prison at Almoyolita for the liberation of the political prisoners at Atenco] Letters and communiques have been sent out by the prisoners denouncing their arbitrary arrest, the physical and psychological violence against them in their detainment, including torture during the transfer from Atenco to the prison, and continuing abuse within the prison. Some are on hunger strike and denounce that they are being forced to eat in front of video cameras. Letters and testimonies have been publicly released from 3 of the 5 internationals deported, recounting the violence with which they were detained and transported and which they witnessed in the treatment of other prisoners, as well as the illegality of their detainment and deportation. Victor Ballinas for La Jornada reports today that the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH is the Spanish acronym) that it has received 150 complaints from Atenco inhabitants, of which 16 are of sexual abuse and 7 of rape of women between 20 and 50 years old. The complaints filed for sexual abuse include forced disrobing, molestation, forced oral sex, objects inserted in the rectum, among others, all of these acts committed by police during the transfer of the detained to the prison at Santiaguito. Until now these denunciations had been heard secondhand but as of yesterday the women that experienced these abuses have testified personally. Other prisoners with serious injuries remain handcuffed to their hospital beds.
Much of this information is only in Spanish but what we can find in English or translate ourselves I will post at www.elkilombo.org. Click on our “Zapatista page” in the upper right hand column under News and Events.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos began granting interviews to the mass media this week, La Jornada has published an interview in two parts on May 9 and 10, www.jornada.unam.mx, and Televisa has video of its May 9 morning interview at its website http://www.esmas.com/noticierostelevisa/mexico/ (scroll down, right hand column in the video gallery. I will have summaries up on these interviews promptly and again, where we can find or do translations of these interviews we’ll post them at www.elkilombo.org.

Indymedia Chiapas has a summary of the international mobilizations in support of the liberation of all political prisoners detained in Atenco (http://chiapas.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=12197), taken from the Intergalactic page of the Sixth Declaration (http://zeztainternazional.ezln.org.mx./). They include actions in 29 cities: Stockholm, Berlin, Bilbao, Barcelona, Munich, Paris, Athens, Munster, Madrid, Venice, Rome, Mestre-Marghera, Bologna, Minneapolis, Tucson, New York, Montreal, Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa Ana, San Diego, Houston, Sacramento, Boston, Chicago, Quito, and Buenos Aires.