This February 3 the federal and state police and members of the Mexican army detained 140 compañeros from the Ejido of San Sebastián Bachajón during a demonstration after their tollbooth to the waterfalls of Agua Azul was taken from them by a group of PRI sympathizers supported by members of the police.

The hypocrisy of the governor of Chiapas, Juan Sabines, is evident, since he says one thing and does another; his words of admiration to Samuel Ruiz are one thing, his hatred and violence against indigenous peoples and their independent organizations is another. He does not tolerate that his former peons talk back to him, much less that they defend their lands.

What do we see in Chiapas beyond the campaigns promoted in commercial media, which attempt to give a false image of the southeastern state? Only repression ad dispossession.

This isn’t the first time that Juan Sabines attacks social activists in both zapatista communities and those which are adherents to the Other Campaign; Sabines attacks a social movement that struggles for justice, for their rights to live with dignity, for the construction of a new country and a new world: there are our 140 compañeros detained.

PRI supporters were not touched when they took the tollbooth, but our compañeros from Bachajón were detained precisely when they struggled to recuperate what they had obtained with their efforts.

The Network against Repression and for Solidarity remains alert to this unfair situation and will undertake the necessary actions in solidarity with our compañeros from Chiapas.

We call on all our compañeros and compañeras in Mexico to undertake actions in solidarity and demosntrations against this agression of the PRI and the government of Sabines against our compañeros from San Sebastián Bachajón, according to your ways and methods.

We call on our compañeros and compañeras from the Sezta Internazional to undertake urgent actions in support and solidarity.

FREEDOM TO POLITICAL PRISONERS