Movement For Justice In El Barrio

One of the five political prisoners of San Sebastián Bachajó

To our Zapatista sisters and brothers

To our comrades of the Other Campaign
To our comrades of the Zezta Internazionale
To our comrade adherents to the International Campaign in Defence of the Barrios and our allies around the world
To civil society in Mexico and the world:

Loving hugs from El Barrio, New York.

This time I write with very good news. Our brother Mariano Demeza Silvano, one of the five political prisoners of San Sebastián Bachajón, is FREE.

The Movement for Justice in El Barrio, the Other Campaign New York, thanks all who organized actions around the world to achieve his freedom.

We also want to reaffirm our commitment to continue fighting until the four remaining prisoners of Bachajón are free – they are still unjustly imprisoned by Governor Juan Sabines PRD repressor, and President Felipe Calderon, PAN repressor.

Here is the Press Release from the ejidatarios of San Sebastián Bachajón announcing the release of Mariano Demeza Silvano.

From the other side.

Movement for Justice in El Barrio

New York La Otra Campaña

Ejido San Sebastian Bachajon, adherents to the Other Campaign, the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle.

July 6, 2011

To human rights defenders, national and international.
To members of the Other Campaign, national and international
To members of the Movement for Justice in El Barrio in New York and its allies around the world.
To the people of Mexico and the world.
To public opinion.
To civil society in Mexico and the world.

Urgent Notice

We hereby advise all the comrades in the world in writing that yesterday, the July 6, 2011, following your many protests, they have borne fruit.

Thanks to each and everyone who made everything possible, the protests and demonstrations have given their first fruit, as yesterday the minor Mariano Demeza Silvano was released from his imprisonment at the Villa Crisol Center for Social Rehabilitation, Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas.

Although he is not completely free. The government of Juan Sabines Guerero freed him five months after he was abducted without committing any crime, a political prisoner whose only crime was speaking out to defend their land and autonomy.

We hope that the release of the other detainees is pending because there are still four other persons who remain wrongfully detained that the bad government has taken as bait for their neoliberal interests.

ZAPAGRINGO: All Bachajón Prisoners Are Free!

The last four of the “Bachajón Five” were liberated this Saturday. The campesinos, adherents of the Other Campaign from San Sebastián Bachajón ejido (Chilón Municipality), who remained prisoners more than five months in the Playas de Catazajá prison, accused of the murder of an ejido member from Agua Azul (Tumbalá), and of alleged crimes related tp protests at the Agua Azul crossing in the first week in February. Although the serious charges turned out to be false, the indigenous men remained incarcerated as “hostages” of the government, according to what the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) has been maintaining. Juan Aguilar Guzmán, Jerónimo Guzmán Méndez, Domingo García Gómez and Domingo Pérez Álvaro, who several times denounced mistreatment by authorities of the Social Re-adaptation Center for the Sentenced Number 17, are now in their community. On July 7, Mariano Demeza Silvano was released, a prisoner in the Villa Crisol (Berriozábal) re-adaptation centre for minors. It’s appropriate to remember here that this persecution against the indigenous men happened within the context of a conflict in San Sebastián Bachajón over the ejido owners’ ticket booth at the access to the Agua Azul Cascades, an important tourist attraction in the state’s northern jungle. The ticket booth, installed by the ejido members, was attacked by members of the PRI and PVEM (Colosio Foundation), who “acted destroying and robbing whatever was in their way,” and they violently appropriated the spot for themselves at the beginning of February, with the backup of the Federal Army (Ejército) and the police who have remained stationed there In those acts Marcos García Moreno, from the aggressor group, lost his life, and the Other Campaign members were blamed, “when it really was the ‘ideology’ of the Secretary General of the Government,” they said, upon denouncing the attack as a “product of the private meetings” between officials and officialist [pro-government] ejido owner.

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