First statements by the CIPO-RFM political prisoners
Brothers and sisters,
According to the habit of the State Justice (injustice) Office, at 11.47pm on the night of 14th September our brothers and sisters began to give statements, after a 4-hour meeting between their lawyer, Rogelio Chagoya, and state prosecutors.
The attitude of the state prosecutors, the police and other functionaries, given that the statements of our brothers and sisters directly accuse the police of bad treatment to them, and of having beaten them, tortured, manhandled, offended and injured them, was to quietly intimidate them or to change their declarations while they were being dictated.
The Magonistas were badly hurt, far from how they were shown in the photos that the police fixed, but we saw them in fine spirit, feisty, denouncing all the aggressions and injustices which they have suffered at the hands of the AFI, the UPOE and even the human rights commission. For that reason when the prosecution officials changed their statements, they signed them only under protest.
The women were taken first to give their statements, followed by the men. The first group of statements were finished by 5.00am and there was then a break until 11.00am on the 15th September, all under article 1778 (PME/2004) for crimes relating to "injury" to members of the ministerial state police, resistance of individuals, crimes against government officials and damage to an official vehicle, naturally without showing any evidence. In fact, the only evidence that exists - a video that they removed from us together with the camera - disproves everything.
Now they have taken statements from all the fine indigenous people of the CIPO-RFM. No-one was saved, for the bad government we are guilty, dangerous. They have sent us to Ixcotel Prison because we do not have the money to pay the bail that was set for our rebellious dignity.
The authorities have fixed bail (according to their danger?) for Dolores Villalobos Cuamatzin at $61,000, for Leonor López Alavez (aged 16), Carmen López Pérez, Kalid Pérez Gómez, Guadalupe García García, Miguel Cruz Moreno, Reynaldo Feria Hernández, Gumaro López Alavez, Gildardo Pérez Gómez, José Cruz Cruz, Abel Ramírez Ramírez and Mauro García García at $45,000. Margarita García García, Abacuc Cruz Cruz were not offered bail terms as there are 4 cases regarding them waiting to be heard. But the most serious case is that Hipólito Rodríguez Soriano has "disappeared".
This act of repression against the CIPO-RFM demonstrates the co-ordination between the State and the federal governments, between Fox and Murat, between the PRI and the PAN when it comes to attacking poor indigenous people. Accordingly, the state attorney of the PGR, Álvaro de la Peńa Angulo and the Federal Attorney Rubén Casanova Medellín who directs operation, align themselves with José M. Vera Salinas and Manuel Moreno Rivas (the escort of the "attack" on José Murat) and compete among themselves to see which of them can hit harder but leave fewer marks on the defenceless bodies of women and children.
Although all the police officials involved say that violence was not used, the evidence says the opposite: the files (0009636) (0009643) of the State Commission on Human Rights of Oaxaca, dated 14th September 2004, when talking about the prisoners says: "the visiting inspector certified the existence of injuries that some of them presented", while in another paragraph, it says: "Carmen López Pérez requires medical attention and should be handed over to a Medical Institution so that professional medical aid can be offered her" (sic).
Big business, the PRI-ist authorities and all those who are the enemies of us, the indigenous people, are paying for large announcements in the newspapers, the radio and the television in order to speak badly of us, and treat us as stinking brigands and worse.
But we will continue, firm in our struggle, until such times as we see the release of our prisoners.
WE NEED YOUR DONATIONS! PLEASE PAY WHAT YOU CAN TO FINANCE THE BAIL ON OUR COMRADES WHICH TOTALS 556,000 PESOS
For the re-organization and free association of our people FOR THE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE OF THE CIPO-RFM (those who remain free)
ELIZABETH PEREZ CRUZ LEONARDO LÓPEZ SARABIA ROSARIO GÓMEZ HERNÁNDEZ RAUL LÓPEZ DÍAZ
Translation by nmcn/fdca
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