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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Mexico: 11 Ayotzinapa Protesters Arrested Are Denied Bail

For Borderland Beat by DD

On November 20 three different massive marches led by students and families of the missing 43 students coalesced on the Zocolo, the main plaza in Mexico City.  The marchers were not only demanding the return of missing students, but demanding the resignation of President Engrique Pena Nieto and demanding justice for the other 22,000+ missing in Mexico.  The demonstrations were peaceful during the entire day of marching and the coming together in the Zocolo.

Earlier in the week Pena Nieto had warned that violence and vandalism would not be tolerated in demonstrations and threatened to use state force against protestors if that occurred. 

 It seems his words turned into action on the night of Nov. 20 as the tens of thousands of demonstrators started disbanding and returning to their homes at about 10:PM.  Shortly after 11:PM a small group of individuals wearing face masks started attacking the troops guarding the National Palace that faces the Zocolo.  Rocks, bottles a few Molotov cocktails were thrown. 
Estimates of the size of the group involved in the violence ranged from 20 to 40.  The army and police responded with force attacking indiscriminately the small crowd that remained in the plaza.  Police violently removed protesters from Zocala Square injuring dozens, despite pleas from the protesters
 pleading with police no to use force photo from telsur
for police to not use repression against the crowd.

The police indiscriminately attacked all those present, including Juan Martin Perez, the executive director of the Network for the Rights of Children, who was in the square with his family. A photographer from Mexican magazine Proceso was also among the injured when an officer threw a sharp piece of metal at him.   Dozens were injured and 15 arrested.
 (Foto @AissateleSUR)


Students and bystanders insisted that the masked “anarchist” were not part of the demonstrators in the marches.  Earlier in the day, social media was abuzz with allegations that police were transporting officers in plainclothes and that police intended to infiltrate the peaceful march to provoke violence.

Ayotzinapa student Dante Hernandez Castrejon said government violation of human rights of protesters that were arrested during the November 20 demonstrations in Mexico City are “way out of line” and are aimed at intimidating people who have supported the struggle to pressure authorities to find the 43 disappeared students alive. 

He pointed to the existence of some infiltrators in the area around the Mexico City airport that morning and in the Zocalo that night, but said that those arrested were students. 


Eleven of those arrested were charged with serious crimes against the state, including attempted murder, conspiracy (terrorism).  After their arrest they were transferred by the PGR to the state of Veracruz and on Monday presented to the 17th District Court to determine if they should be detained.
The court denied them bail due to the seriousness of the crimes even though the evidence against them was “fuzzy”.  PGR failed to produce the videos and photos that the office had promised as conclusive evidence of their guilt.  The “key” element  in the evidence presentedto identify the arrested as part of a “collective subversive group” was the testimony of police who said the students referred to each other as “compa” (buddy).

The detainees complained to Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) for alleged acts of physical violence and mistreatment during their transport to the Republic’s General Attorney (PGR) facilities and later to Federal Prisons, where they remain held.

 Alejandro Jimenez, counselor to the allegedly unfairly detained declared that the moving of five male students to the high security prison of Veracruz and three women to the one in Nayarit, has made difficult the communication with their families, most of them of limited economic resources.
During a press conference in Mexico city, Jimenez said that the arrested attended the march on November 20 as part of different groups; also, they were verbally mistreated, threatened and physically attacked while being arrested and during their transfer from the Deputy Organized Crime Specialized Secretary (SEIDO) to the states of Veracruz and Nayarit. The lawyer quoted the files of the prison physicians, that states the arrested individuals have been evidently beaten.

Activists fear that the repression unleashed Thursday night in Zocalo is a sign of things to come.
La Jornada said in an editorial that;

It is regrettable, first of all, that a protest for a crime committed by a police force, as is the case in the murder and disappearance of the student teachers in Iguala on September 26, is reinforced with abuse by authorities against innocent citizens. The arbitrary and baseless arrests result in a violation of the law by those in charge of seeing that it prevails, weakens the rule of law, accelerates the discrediting of government institutions and increases the discontent already traversing the country.

Moreover, as reprehensible as is repeated police abuse against innocent citizens, the inability of the police to distinguish between innocent people and possible suspects, and the unjustified detention of random people, it is even more reprehensible that citizens who are arrested in these circumstances receive treatment similar to that of murderers, drug traffickers and kidnappers, and that they are sent to federal prisons with unusual speed by the institutions that administer the eAs can be seen, this trend has moved from words to deeds, while the arbitrariness with which the police acted to disperse the crowd and the actions of the prosecutors who consigned the detainees cannot be understood as anything other than a means of intimidating those who have participated in these mass actions and of inhibiting the realization of future demonstrations.

Such a perspective is unacceptable, because it would reveal a government that has not only been unable to provide a single hard and credible piece of information on the whereabouts of the 43 missing students, but also that is beginning to focus more on silencing and suppressing expressions of discontent aroused by that crime than to clarify itnforcement of justice.

"The government is dumbstruck," said Jose Antonio Crespo, a political science professor at Mexico's Center for Economic Research and Teaching.

"This should be a turning point to enact deeper measures against corruption, whether the entire political class accepts it, wants it, or not," he argued.

Milenio newspaper columnist Ciro Gomez Leyva warned that Pena Nieto "will not get a second chance.

FREE THE POLITICAL PRISONERS;phot by  Reuters /Carlos Jasso
The indiscriminate attack on the mostly peaceful crowd and the arbitrary arrest of the 11 students on Nov. 20 has not succeeded in intimidating and repressing the protesters.  It has only given the protesters a new slogan and theme for their marches.   

A small march on Sat., Nov 22 was held protesting the arrests and demanding the release of the 11 “political prisoners”.  Another larger march was held yesterday, Tue. Nov. 25 with the same demands. 

At the National Center for the Arts, a public institution in Mexico City's south, roughly a hundred students and professors gathered in an open-air amphitheater Monday to discuss the upcoming protest. The purpose of the assembly wasn't to draw up plans of attack, but rather to figure out how marchers could protect themselves from the police. Atzin Andrade González, who attends the center's painting and sculpture school, is among the group of 11 detainees.


"It's actually kind of scary," Eduardo, a 23-year-old student at the center's music school, said. "But we can't give in to that fear. Even though we know [the police] have the power to disappear us, we have to continue so they don't do it to anyone else."
Twitter #LibertadPresosPoliticos #YaMeCanse

 

7 comments:

  1. You can bet your ass they are being tortured and beaten. This is not just happening with these people. It happens to people all over Mexico for even minor infractions. Sometimes if people do not pay bribes they are beaten, and many for trumped up charges. I had a friend stopped at a revision that has never drank, used drugs or even smoked in his life. known him for years. At one stop by federals they took them inside a temporary trailer and one officer that remained outside cane into the trailer with a small bag of marijuana. They paid $200 to get out of this situation. If not they would have been put in prison. There is nothing you can do and they operate with impunity all over Mexico. I feel sorry for these students. They will make up false charges and add more as needed.

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  2. Could we start the Revolution already. Throw is government out. A failed country.

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  3. Infiltrated by government agents? Why not self police and have the protesters arrest the instigators! ( citizens arrest ) Then we would know if they are really police in disguise or guys just trying to ale a mockery of the situation!

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    1. That was clearly done with bad intent by some malevolent mf's .. some one wanted to turn that protest into another tragedy .. what if some one sent the infiltrated bastards to get the situation out of control making some others look bad .. seems like they got what they wanted some got arrested and the police force fools fell for it. I don't doubt that will happen again with other upcoming protest .. penia nieto can't do that kind of stuff because it would make him look bad .. making things worse than what allready is for his presidency .. he can't be that dumb .. the ones getting hamered by penia nieto did it probably? drug cartels that are getting hit maybe? mexican police and drug cartels work toguether in lots of places sometimes because they don't got other choice .. remember that.

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  4. u are wasting ur time go home nieto isn't going to help come to the US Obama will help

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  5. "Police and narcs work together because the don't have other choice"
    Wrong my friend, the narcs have been working FOR the police, who supervise them and collect money, plaza or piso for the government higher ups who also steal US government aid left overs and fabricate guilty parties to show somework...
    --narcs have had to recruit more workers who don't get paid either, hey are recruited, but have to make their own money and pay up or die...
    --A kill the boss program needs to be started all over mexico, the fucking politicians will be running home to mama, the US..

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