Today I received a letter from eleven companions in Mexican prisons who are on hunger strike. Their treatment is an urgent example of the present government’s contempt for the aspirations and rights of the peoples it suppresses and dominates.  We have to protest, all of us according to our means. Please act! Speak out!

Here is the reply I sent to the prisoners:

—
Thank you for your letter; it was an honour to receive it.  They accuse you of murder because they dare not accuse you of love.  And your examples of love is what they fear.

The courage of your hunger strike comes from the fact that you know your lives have a meaning, and that meaning resonates to yourselves and to others each long day. Whereas your captors are lost in the violence of meaninglessness.

I send you solidarity and earrings of hope.

John Berger
France.