Representatives of the Movement of the People of El Bosque for the Freedom of Alberto Patishtán Gómez delivered a letter with over 5,000 signatures to Freddy Celis Gabriel Fuentes, president of the Twenty-first Circuit Appeals Court, demanding the release of the teacher imprisoned for almost thirteen years.
Martín Ramírez, representative of the movement, reported that court officials informed them that they have not yet received the file for the Pastishtán Gómez case.
"Anyway, they told us that they will review it in compliance with the law" when the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) sends it, he added.The activist said that the delivery of the letter to the court offices, located in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, was attended by about thirty people authorized for that purpose, carrying banners and placards demanding the release of the Tzotzil teacher. In the letter to Celis Fuentes and to his fellow judge Manuel de Jesús Rosales Suárez, they expressed that
"it's time to listen to our voice and petition: we ask justice and the immediate release of Alberto. This has been our watchword and it will absolutely continue being our voice until his release. What does it cost to free an innocent man? What is gained by condemning an innocent man?"The signatories of the letter demanded
"at this stage of review and analysis of the incident for recognition of innocence ..., which the professor initiated, you may act with justice and it may now be the end, because we believe that this court has the capacity to resolve and bring our historical to an end."
The next action is a pilgrimage in Tuxtla Gutiérrez to demand the release of Patishtán Gómez that is scheduled for April 19, the date when Patishtán turns 42-years old.
The Tzotzil teacher, Alberto Patishtán, is imprisoned in the prison of San Cristóbal, sentenced to sixty years in prison, accused of having participated in an ambush near this town in the year 2000, in which six policemen and one municipal official were killed. Spanish original