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| Demonstrators and Police Clash During Monday's March (Photo: Xinhua News / Alejandro Ayala) |
Mexico City - Relatives and lawyers of those arrested during the Monday, June 10th, march commemorating the Halconazo of 1971, publicly denounced the authorities of the Government of the Federal District (GDF) [Mexico City] for being part of a "campaign of repression" orchestrated against the young people who were protesting against the State, as well as "arbitrary" detention of 27 people yesterday, not 22 indicated in the official report.
"I was there, and I saw everyone running: the street vendors, members of the CNTE [National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers; dissident teachers], everyone. At the gates of the GDF, the police were yelling: 'Against everyone! Kill them!' No one can deny what I say," said Wendy de la Rosa, mother of Alejandro Orozco and a member of the Coordinating Committee of 1DMX [1 December Mexico].Speaking at a press conference, she related that her son managed to communicate with her from the patrol car of the SSPDF [Mexico City Police], to warn her that he had been arrested in the vicinity of the Zócalo.
Like other family members who marched to the offices of the GDF and appeared before the media, she blamed Mexico City Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera:
"Mancera is turning his back on all the youth and on the people who voted for him. [Mancera won office with 60% of the vote.] If he cannot govern this city, then let him resign," she declared.Meanwhile, Adriana Martínez Paredes, mother of Juan Esteban Barrera Martinez, who was attacked by police in the November 20 Street, related that she wasn't able to gather information about the arrest of her son, a student of Sociology at the UAM-Atzcapotzalco.
"They beat him with sticks and left him unconscious. While he was lying on the floor, they continued beating him. He arrived at Agency 50 of the Public Ministry [investigative police and prosecutors] senseless, passed out from a strong blow to the head. They did not allow a doctor to attend to him until a human rights group insisted.
"They took him to Balbuena Hospital in a patrol car, given that the order had been given that two in worse condition were to be transferred by ambulance. From there he was sent to La Villa because there were no specialists. Then they said that he needed a neurologist and sent him to Xoco Hospital," she shared. ...Detainees' family members claimed that they have not been allowed to see their relatives, that they continue to be held incommunicado.
Josefina Pérez, aunt of Sergio Abraham Méndez, 26, emphasized that her nephew is an outstanding PhD student with a scholarship from the CONACYT [National Council of Science and Technology], member of the LTS [League of Workers for Socialism], of #YoSoy132 [student movement] and the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity [MPJD], headed by the poet Javier Sicilia. Moreover, she charged,
"The television news broadcasts are bombarding us with anarchism, with troublemakers. Branding all equally. Many are outstanding students. May they be released soon!"The sister of Juan Martín Arancibia, a student at CCH [College of Science and Humanities] South, said that the young people being detained are nothing more than scapegoats for the Mexico City government.
"The situation we are facing is very difficult. My brother was arrested for crimes he did not commit. He is a scapegoat, a young man with a historical memory [of the 1971 repression] who believes that the country can be transformed by struggle."Miguel Méndez, a member of the League of December 1 Lawyers--an organization that took over some of the cases of those arrested for the disturbances on the day that the PRI returned to presidential power, has again taken up as its own the cause of "political prisoners"--explained that the detainees, so far, are charged with three crimes: attacks on public peace, insults, and injuries to the [police] authority.
"Again we are faced with these cases of constant repression that the State exercises against the activists. That's the situation with 1DMX, when the CDHD [Human Rights Commission of the Federal District/Mexico City] issued a recommendation saying that more than 90% of the detentions were arbitrary. We are in the same situation with the arbitrary arrests of 27 people, two children. Many can't count on evidence of having been caught 'in the act', because they were detained on streets back from where it is said the events occurred.
"All three offenses can obtain release on bail, unless the Public Ministry [PM] adds another charge. The PM has 48 hours to determine responsibilities. They are generically charging the 27 [being held] with the same offenses. It couldn't be that way because participation is individual, and all 27 people would not have been able to commit the same crimes. The charges should be individualized," the attorney said.Moreover, he regretted that the Mayor, Miguel Ángel Mancera, had not made "even a statement" about the issue.
The names of detainees identified so far are Sergio Abraham Méndez, Nancy Cornejo Casares, Edgar Gonzalo Arredondo González y Alejando Osorio Cruz, Luna Flores, Luis Ángel Lara Silvestre, Eder Mancera Villar, Carlos Esteban Jiménez, Diego Jacob Rodríguez Lora, Amadeus Navarrete Mariscal y Erick Navarro Estrada, Jesús Daniel Navarrete Bejarano, Jorge Velázquez Picasso, Juan Martín Arancibia, Eréndira Alier Ferreira, Raúl Antonio González Hernández, Diego Mora, Juan Esteban Barrera Martínez, Luz Barrera Fuentes, Carlos Vázquez Martínez, Drey Roseda Arizpe y Jesús Tejeros Briseño.
Jenny Godinez, also an attorney with the League of December 1 Lawyers, regretted that the security protocol used by the GDF might have fallen into "the use of excessive force", which is proved by graphic evidence, such that during the early morning hours of Tuesday, they filed an amparo [injunction] "for torture and illegal detention".
Regarding the assaults by groups of hooded people against police, she said:
"We would have to verify both the videos and photographs that they are providing because sometimes they have nothing to do with [Monday's] march. They are using photographs from 1DMX."The attorney argued that the arrests were arbitrary and not against those who organized the excesses carried out one hour after the said events and with the participation of people in civilian clothes.
"The difference with 1DMX is that there is a recommendation from the CDHDF saying they [GDF] must to monitor the implementation of the security protocol. We are waiting for the 28 arresting police agents to produce their statement, which would be in the early morning hours, in order to determine the legal status of each of the detainees. However, the PM has now generalized the crimes, which is illogical," said the lawyer.At the end of the meeting and before heading to the march that left the PM Agency 50 (where the detainees are being held) for the Zócalo, a young man who only wanted to be identified as Cristóbal and a member of the Eastern Front--an organization that has been persecuted by authorities and the communications media, but also identified by members of #YoSoy132 as responsible for "violating" that movement--read a statement in response to the arrest of six members of their group:
"The repression that has been exercised against the social movement is nothing new. Violence erupts on behalf of the repressive forces. The apprehensions have a context: repression is exercised that we might not grow politically, in order that our organizational form may not prosper.
"It is a war undertaken by those who hold the power to demobilize us. We are not going to stop [struggling] for change," he said, calling for the release of all political prisoners.Spanish original