The Voice of El Amate denounces the grave situation of Indigenous Prisoners who are considered “Political”

** Dozens of prisoners in Cintalapa carry out a protest for better conditions in Prison 14

** On the sixth anniversary of the organization they especially emphasize the case of Professor Alberto Patishtán Gómez

By: Herman Bellinghausen

San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, January 12, 2012

English translation by the Chiapas Support Committee

On the sixth anniversary of the prisoners’ organization The Voice of El Amate (La Voz del Amate), adherents to the Other Campaign and common voice for other groups of organized indigenous prisoners (primarily in prison Number 5 in San Cristóbal de las Casas, and prison Number 14, known as El Amate, in Cintalapa de Figueroa), clarified the situation of the indigenous prisoners who are considered “political” in Chiapas prisons. Especially, the case of Professor Alberto Patishtán Gómez, spokesperson for The Voice of El Amate, who was unjustifiably sent to a federal prison in Guasave, Sinaloa, last October.

Rosario Díaz Méndez, also of the Voice of El Amate, and currently a prisoner in prison Number 5, expressed on the occasion of the anniversary of the organization, founded on January 5th, 2006 in El Amate on the passage of Delegate Zero at the beginning of the Other Campaign: “Now they have separated a friend from us, the compañero Alberto Patishtán. Is he a man dangerous to society? No. But is he dangerous to the government? Yes, because of telling the truth, for which they have taken him away from his close companions.”

The Voice of El Amate has headed two prolonged hunger strikes in several Chiapas prisons, together with other civil organizations of prisoners. The first, between March and April 2008, won the liberation of around 50 prisoners who participated in the protest and alleged their innocence.

Patishtán alone did not get released at that time, because his crime was federal, which permitted the Chiapas government to wash its hands of the case when they took him to Guasave in October 2011, through deceit and without justification. At that moment he had been fasting for 22 days, while other compañeros of his maintained a hunger strike that was to last 39 days without any response from the government, and barely any promises.

Last Sunday, the Other Campaign prisoners in the San Cristóbal prison, members of the Voice of El Amate or in “solidarity” with it, received around 130 visitors from state, national and international collectives and organizations. Alejandro Díaz Santis, Rosario Díaz Méndez, Pedro López Jiménez, Rosa López Díaz, Juan Díaz López, Alfredo López Jiménez, Francisco Santis López and Juan Collazo were all there.

During the commemoration, Rosario also maintained: “Our struggle, and hunger strike, is a sign of innocence. We show that we do not owe anything to anyone, much less to the government of Juan Sabines Guerrero. We are prisoners through the fault of his bad officials that have prefabricated (accusations) against us. I say with pride that I do not owe them anything for the alleged offences”.

López Jiménez, new spokesperson for the prisoners, confirmed: “We have received attacks and harassment from the government,” in particular in the transfer and later isolation of Professor Patishtán as a highly dangerous prisoner in a prison to the country’s north. He explained that last November they decided to interrupt their hunger strike before 40 days because, “listening” to society in solidarity, the prisoners decided: “that being alive one can struggle.”

He celebrated “the freedom of four compañeros and the solidarity of many organizations.” as the fruits of that protest; and all the prisoners reiterated their demand for immediate freedom. Their struggle has raised awareness of the persistence of corrupt practices in the police and the Chiapas judicial system: systematic torture, fabrication of charges, procedural abuses, the assignment of sentences and punishment once incarcerated.

In another context, last Wednesday, dozens of prisoners in the El Amate state prison, in Cintalapa, held a demonstration inside Prison 14, for the purpose of demanding better conditions for the prsoners. According to information from the Mexican League for the Defence of Human Rights, personnel from the State Human Rights Commission would have mediated in the protest.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Friday, January 13, 2012

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/01/13/politica/024n1pol