Mexico has had in its long history a great number of political prisoners. Only in the past century of 70 years of the PRI Party government rule, thousands of Mexicans and immigrant residents in Mexico have gone to prison for their political affiliation, their way of thinking or for defending their rights. Today in the 21st Century , things have not changed: hundreds of political prisoners are imprisoned by the Mexican state in its centers of extermination in the worst conditions — held in small and unhealthy spaces, harassed and humiliated — all as a punishment to the Mexican society and social activists who seek to defend their rights or change the actual system of exploitation in which we suffer. The situation has extended itself to this century, where the wealth of a few and their desire to extend their dominion to all walks of life has led them to use every avenue of repression of the state against any type of dissension.
To demonstrate how far this repression has gone in Oaxaca check this out: On Saturday, the 4th of March, 2006 at approximately 10am in the municipal agency of Santiago Cuixtla there was a community assembly to discuss the subject of natural resources (sand and gravel) that are being extracted from the river of Cuixtla. While the assembly met peacefully, there occurred an aggression of high powered firearms against the participants, directed by the aspiring municipal president by the substitute delegate of the PRI. The public officials were escorted by the Public Security police and the municipal police. These events left two people wounded: Jesus Carmona Mijangos and Marino Cruz Canseco and one disappeared: Tomas Ruiz Carmona. Also, the police arbitrarily detained eight of the attacked people all of whom were affiliated with the Indian Organization for Human Rights in Oaxaca (OIDHO) and the Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR). The repression continued on March 8th when the United Police of Essential Operations (UPOE) dissolved a demonstration of 600 people who demanded the freedom of the detainees and the punishment of the guilty. In the latest aggression they detained four more people and gravely injured another, Joel Roldan Mendoza, who suffered a cranial fracture. Also hundreds of people stationed in the first block of the city of Oaxaca impeded the public meeting. More information is available at www.espora.org/amz.
With situations as previously described it is essential that the problem of political prisoners in Mexico be divulged and receive the broadest support from organizations, collectives and individuals, understanding that the fight for their liberation must not neglect a fight for political prisoners around the world.
The Cerezo Committee, which fights for the freedom of the brothers Hector and Antonio Cerezo Contreras, students at the National Autonomous University and Pablo Alvarado Flores, Nahuatl Indian, who were unjustly imprisoned since August of 2001 in the maximum security prison Palma, is comprised by families and friends from the school and/or the work place of the Cerezo’s brothers. The group focuses on the unjust prison system, the torture and violation of human rights in high security prisons and the state of more than 500 political prisoners in Mexico. One of its objectives is to contribute through its capacity and resources to the freedom of all political prisoners of the country , and documenting and publishing an annual report of political prisoners in Mexico. The Committee has worked to register more than 500 political prisoners in Mexico. It has also participated in diverse initiatives to coordinate their freedom in the last four years. More information is available at www.espora.org/comitecerezo.