|
| |
|
Indigenous & Latina Women & Children's Human
Rights News from the Americas |
|
|
| |
|
|
Latin America |
|
Women & Children at Risk |
| |
|
Title: |
Atenco
Update I: Hunger Strikes, Protests And Mobilizations |
|
|
Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News
Summary: 05/29-06/04 |
| |
|
Publisher: |
2006 Mexico
Solidarity Network |
|
Publish Date: |
2005-06-04 |
|
|
|
|
The International
Commission for Observation of Human Rights, made up mainly of European
human rights activists, spent the week interviewing Atenco residents,
government officials and human rights organizations, and trying -
unsuccessfully - to visit 27 political prisoners from Atenco held in two
prisons. The Commission's full report is expected in September.
Prison officials also denied visitation rights to family members and
conducted several court hearings in private, both clear violation of
Mexican law. The Special Investigator for Attention to Acts of
Violence Committed against Women (FEVIM) received seven formal
complaints this week from women who were raped or sexually molested by
police during the early May roundups in Atenco. Police officials
and Governor Enrique Pena continued to deny any grave misconduct on the
part of police, and sited the results of lie detector tests conducted in
private as "proof."
Most of the 27
prisoners held in Santiaguito Prison entered the fourth week of a hunger
strike that has left many in a weakened state. Demands include
release of all Atenco prisoners, justice for those who suffered rape,
beatings and torture, and impeachment of Governor Enrique Pena.
The newly formed organization Women Without Fear - We Are All Atenco
organized a rotating hunger strike and 24-hour vigilance in front of the
prison. Actress Ofelia Medina led the first group of hunger
strikers.
In a biting
editorial in Friday's (06/02) La Jornada, Adolfo Gilly highlighted the
use of sexual violence to attack social movements as a new, and
particularly worrisome, state strategy: "With the police rapes of the
women of Atenco, the violence of the Mexican state surpassed a limit.
Of course, before, the state killed, committed massacres, tortured,
kidnapped, raped and disappeared people. But since Tlatelolco Š
even with the assassinations and disappearances of the 70s and
successive years, they had not practiced mass rape of women prisoners as
they did recently in the case of San Salvador Atenco - a collective act
of barbarity that no uniformed officer would commit without orders from
commanders."
The case of Arnulfo
Pacheco Cervantes, arrested in his home in Atenco, exemplifies the
brutal police excesses. Arnuflo is paraplegic. When police
burst into his home early on May 4, his wife tried in vain to explain
his delicate medical condition. Police pushed her aside, beating
Pacheco, who is in his 60s, with batons, and breaking five of his ribs.
In prison he has received no medical attention and his life is at risk
because of internal hemorrhaging from the beatings. Pacheco is
accused of kidnapping and attacks against a public highway. As La
Jornada reporter Hermann Bellinghausen noted, "The most notable thing
about Pacheco, besides his advanced age, is that half of his body has
been paralyzed for a long time and he can barely talk. A person in
his state would have trouble crossing the street, much less 'attack'
it."
Last Sunday, more
than 50,000 demonstrators organized by the Other Campaign marched from
the US Embassy to the Zocalo, marking the largest demonstration to date
in support of the Atenco prisoners.
International
demonstrations increased this week as well, with actions in dozens of US
cities and countries around the world. The Mexico Solidarity
Network encourages supporters to be as public as possible in support of
the Atenco prisoners. Banner drops in public places will keep
pressure on the Mexican government to release political prisoners and
prosecute officials for rape and beatings.
Please send photos
of your actions to local media and a copy to the Mexico Solidarity
Network. Next week the Mexico Solidarity Network will begin
distributing a new video on Atenco produced by Promedios, IndyMedia and
the Seis de Julio video collective. For more information, contact
MSN@MexicoSolidarity.org |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
LibertadLatina
News
/
Noticias |
|
|
|
Mandanos
un... |
Email |
|
Send us
an... |
Últimas Noticias
Latest
News
May 2008 News
California, USA
Sexual predator tries to
take 2 girls
A suspected sexual
predator has been caught on tape and police are
releasing the video in hopes of finding him
before he strikes again.
Police say the
suspect tried to abduct an 8-year-old girl last
month on her way to school. He also tried the
same thing in February with a 9-year-old girl.
In both cases, the
victims were lured to apartment buildings where
he tried to sexually assault them, but they were
able to get away unharmed.
The suspect is
described as a Hispanic man, 25 to 30 years old,
5 feet 6 inches, 170 pounds, with black spiked
hair.
- Subha
Ravindhran
KABC
Los Angeles
May 15, 2008
Texas, USA
Police report eight apartment
assaults against women
Midland police said
Wednesday they are now investigating eight
separate assaults on female victims that have
occurred at apartment complexes throughout the
Tall City in the past month...
...Police have had a
hard time trying to get a complete description
of the man.
What they do have is
he is a Hispanic male around 30 years of age
between 5-foot-7 and 5-foot-9...
- Audrie Palmer
Midland
Reporter-Telegram
May 15, 2008
Mexico
Soldados nos agreden:
mujeres Me’phaa de La Montaña, Guerrero
Soldiers Subject Indigenous Women & Communities
to Terror in Guerrero State
Fortina Cruz Ortega, of
the Me`phaa ethnic group (members of the larger
indigenous Tlapaneca tribe of the region called
La Montaña in Guerrero state), joined with four
other indigenous women... to denounce human
rights abuses occurring in La Montaña... The
group... gave testimony before the Indigenous
Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies...
Cruz Ortega: "We,
the women of the Me`phaa, live in everyday fear
of leaving our homes, because military soldiers
harass us... Many of our women have been raped
by these soldiers, but they remain silent
because if their husbands found out, they would
get angry and leave them."
Cruz Ortega, the
wife of Orlando Manzanares Lorenzo, also
denounced the fact that her husband, as well as
the husbands of the other four women present,
had been falsely accused in the homicide of
Alejandro Feliciano García, a police and
military informant. Those detained include:
Manuel Cruz Victoriano... who denounced having
been forcibly sterilized by workers of the
Secretary of Health; ... and Natalio Ortega Cruz
and Romualdo Santiago Enedina, both... cousins
of a woman named Inés, who... was raped by
soldiers in 2002...
The wives of these
prisoners declared that the only 'crime' their
husbands are guilty of is that of having
organized and protected their communities...
After the women
concluded their statements at the press
conference, Deputy Marcos Matías Alonso
announced that the following day, the issue of
the
Me`phaa leadership's unjust
arrest would be presented to the Senate of the
Republic by Senator Cuauhte-moc Sandoval, a member of the
Permanent Commission...
- Sandra Torres
Pastrana
CIMAC Noticias
Mexico City
May 8, 2008
See also:
Lorenzo Fernández Ortega,
a leading member of the Me Phaa Indigenous
People’s Organization (Organización del Pueblo
Indígena Me Phaa - OPIM) and brother of Inés
Fernández Ortega, was kidnapped on 9 February
and found dead the following day, in Ayutla de
los Libres, Guerrero State.
Other members of OPIM have also
suffered threats and intimidation since the day
of the kidnapping. Amnesty International is
gravely concerned for their safety.
- Amnesty International
Feb. 22, 2008
Mexico's Indians Target of
Sterilization 'Sweep'
Ayutla de los Libres - Jose
Toribio, a Mixtec Indian from the Sierra Madre
mountains... attributes the pain [in his leg] to
a vasec-tomy he had two years ago after visits
to his remote village by No. 3 Brigade, a state
medical team...
Toribio now says he had the
operation because of threats made to him by No.
3 Brigade.
His claims are supported by the
official Guerrero Human Rights Commission...
- Linda Diebel
Toronto Star (Canada)
March 26, 2000
LibertadLatina
The crisis of forced
sterilization facing indigenous and Latin
communities in the Americas
Mexico
A view from the
frontlines of grass-roots action to rescue
children from sexual slavery in Mexico
About the Breaking Chains
Mission, based in Tijuana, Mexico
Steven Cass: "Our ministry actually works street
level to identify and then rescue victims of
child prostitution and trafficking. We have
over 150 rescues so far from 7-22 years old and
are in the midst of an extended trip in Southern
Mexico where we have identified 100's in this
situation. Over the next month we pray to bring
them to freedom."
[The front page of the
above web site contains a moving video of
testimonies from teen girls rescued from the
street by the Breaking Chains Mission.]
Breaking Chains Mission
Report
For 5-11-2008
Report Excerpt:
Mexico's Southern Pacific Coastal Tourist
Areas
...In terms of what’s happening here on this
mission…there is much. I am seeing numerous
children involved in prostitution with tourists,
many as young as 5-7 years old. As I walk the
areas where this is prevalent it is clear that
the locals are very aware of what’s happening
between their children and the tourists who
flock here...
North Americans and those from other countries
as well are known here for one thing…looking for
drugs and underage boys and girls...
Last night as I walked through one of the main
party zones I was approached by a hustler who in
perfect English asked me if I wanted “underage
girls.” I asked him “what about the laws?” His
reply made me want to vomit…he said with a grin
that had satan written all over it: “we have a
great government here.”
I do believe the local authorities are trying to
stop it but like the war on drugs they have
turned a cheek for so long that the problem is
almost beyond hope...
- Steven Cass
Breaking Chains Mission
May 11, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
Dear Steven Cass,
Thanks for your letter.
Keep up the great work. We know that it is tough
and lonely on the frontlines!
Many of the most effective acts against impunity
are those taken by individuals and small groups
of volunteers who have the fortitude to walk
into the jaws of evil and dare to rescue victims
from impunity. We salute your efforts to
rescue our children and youth in peril.
End
impunity now!
-
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 14, 2008
Mexico
Exigen frenar explotación
laboral de menores indígenas
Congress Demands an End to the Labor
Exploitation of Indigenous Children
Approximately three
million mostly indigenous children and
adolescents face labor exploitation in Mexico
due to the economic problems facing 80% of the
population, and due to the customs of families
who use the labor of their children to survive.
According to a
report by Mexico's Chamber of Deputies, the
majority of these children abandon school or are
about to do so, as their families migrate to
cities and agricultural export farming regions.
Deputy César Flores
Maldonado, coordinator for the Revolutionary
Democratic Party (PRD) stated: "The child labor
force can be seen in workshops, farm fields,
ware-houses, markets, long-haul trucking and
in high-risk activities such as sexual
exploitation. It is a well-established reality
in our nation. Little-or-nothing is done to
eradicate it."
Some 15.7% of
underage Mexicans engage in some type of work.
An estimated 54.7% of child laborers are
domestic workers [many of whom are sexually
exploited].
About 5,000 children
work as 'carriers' in Mexico City's warehouse
industry. The government does nothing to control
this exploitation, which causes accidents and
deformities in these working children.
Nine in ten indigenous
child laborers receive no pay for their work.
The states with the
highest rates of child labor are Chiapas,
Campeche, Puebla and Veracruz, where 22% of
minors work.
In Mexico City,
15,000 minors live and work on the city's
streets,
- La Cronica
Mexico
May 2, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
The
feudal Spanish system of slave labor that was
imposed on indigenous peoples in Mexico and
across Latin America during the European
colonial period (1400's-1800's) has continued to
operate
unchanged and
with impunity in Mexico and many other
Latin American countries .
For
500 years indigenous women and children have
remained the primary target of opportunity for labor
slavery, and for
sexual predators and sex traffickers, throughout the Americas.
(Yes, our peoples were sex-trafficked by
colonists even 500
years ago.)
End
impunity now!
-
Chuck Goolsby
LibertadLatina
May 14, 2008
See also:
An undercover
reporter in
Spain
poses as
a buyer
[pimp], and is
Offered six
virgin
Indigenous
'girls
[all of them
age 13] by
a trafficker.
The
'sale' price
in Europe
for young Mayan
girls
kidnapped
from
Chiapas,
Mexico:
$25,000
each.
(In Spanish)
-
Antonio Salas and
Joan Manuel Baliellas
Crónica
Spain
Feb. 29, 2004
Investigará
gobierno de
Chiapas
venta de
indígenas en
Europa
Chiapas
State
Investigates
Sale of
Young Mayan
Girls in
Europe.
(In Spanish)
"In one
restaurant
in Madrid,
little girls
from Chiapas
are sold [in
prostitution]
as if they
were a
species of
animal that
was about to
become
extinct.
[In other
words, pimps
buy and sell
13-year-old
Mayan girls
at a high
price
because they
are
considered
to be
"exotic" in
Spain.]
- CIMAC Noticias
News for Women
Mexico City
March 15, 2004
LibertadLatina
About the Crisis of Sexual Exploitation
Affecting Women and Children in Mexico
Idaho, USA
The use of "illegal
immigrant" in Idaho rapist story creates false
connection
An appalling story
out of St. Anthony, Idaho speeded across the
Internet this morning. According to Idaho Falls
CBS affiliate, KIDK, a 10-year-old girl gave
birth to a 6 lb. baby girl as a result of being
raped.
The news story on
the KIDK site read in part: "…That person is
this man, 37-year old Guadalupe
Gutierrez-Juarez. Juarez is actually an illegal
immigrant, and is now behind bars in the Fremont
County Jail on other rape charges...
If convicted the
illegal immigrant could face life in prison, a
$50,000 fine ,or both. Whether he ever serves
anytime behind bars will be up to the judge who
if he places him on probation, could deport
him."
From the way this
story reads, "If convicted the [undocumented]
immigrant could face life in prison,"
dehumanizes not just the intended target, the
rapist, but ALL undocumented immigrants. Also,
it makes it sound that this was a
stranger-on-stranger crime.
It wasn't.
The rapist was
married to the girl's mother. Latina Lista has
yet to verify if the rapist was the child's
father.
At any rate, it
should go without saying that not all
undocumented immigrants are rapists but this
article definitely plants the connection between
the two terms...
By repeatedly
referring to this rapist as the "illegal
immigrant," this media story does a disservice
to the local community and popular perception of
all undocumented immigrant men who are Latino...
-
Marisa Treviño
Politics in Color
May 9, 2008
LibertadLatina
note:
We
at
LibertadLatina
agree with Marisa Treviño's editorial
view-point that repeatedly calling an accused
rapist "the illegal alien" instead of using his
actual name is indeed a thinly-veiled effort to
identify all undocumented immigrant men with the
crime of rape (be that a conscious or an
unconscious goal of a given reporter).
However, the fact that a rape suspect is
undocumented is in-fact part of the story.
One
researcher (see below) estimates that 93 sex
offenders and 12 serial sexual offenders come
across the U.S. - Mexican border each day.
While the impact of that fact in the United
States is of concern, of equal concern is the
fact that women and children in Mexico face rape
and abuse with impunity in | |
/ Welcome
