* More than 13 countries have adhered to the campaign to bring down the prison walls

* In a message the Junta greets the Worldwide Week of Struggle for the Freedom of Political Prisoners in Chiapas

By: Hermann Bellinghausen
Periódico La Jornada

The Good Government Junta (JBG) released a message from the Caracol of Oventic, in los Altos (the Highlands) of Chiapas, demanding the immediate and unconditional freedom of Francisco Santiz López, a support base of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional, EZLN), “detained unjustly six months ago” and currently a prisoner in San Cristóbal de las Casas due to actions by “the bad rulers of our country.”

The message points out: “We have already denounced and demanded his freedom from the three levels of bad government who want to continue to violate human rights. Our  conpañero Francisco is completely innocent, the only “crime” that he has is being a Zapatista support base.”

At the same time it greets the second week of worldwide struggle for the freedom of Chiapas political prisoners: “To all of you in your efforts to struggle for justice, we tell you to continue onward, because the bad state and federal governments are clear that they are going to continue their war against us the Zapatistas and against all the people who struggle for justice and to defend their rights.”

The new week Bring down the prison walls, to be celebrated from June 8 to 15, convoked by the Movement for Justice in the Barrio of the Other Campaign in New York, already has adherents from India, Peru, Uruguay, South Africa, Canada, Brazil, Spain, England, Scotland, Austria, New Zealand, United States and Mexico, to demand the liberation of Santiz López and of professor Alberto Patishtán Gómez, punished with medieval anger by the Chiapas government in a federal prison in Guasave, Sinaloa.

The organizers demand: “of the repressor president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and the repressor governor Juan Sabines Guerrero” the freedom of those indigenous. They insist that after the first week of struggle, held in May, “some cracks have been made in the unjust prison walls.”

Meanwhile, the Anti-Racism Allies Group of the Occupy Wall Street Movement in New York demonstrated its support for the renewed protests.

At the same time, in a letter delivered directly to Rosaura Leonora Rueda Gutiérrez, the Ambassador of Mexico in the capital of New Zealand, the Wellington Zapatista Solidarity Committee, the program “¡Oye Latino!” on Wellington Access Radio and the Latin American Solidarity Committee showed “profound concern and indignation” for the way in which Mexico punishes with imprisonment “those who are organizing to defend their rights”.

The governments “try to condemn them to oblivion, silence and submission, but their voices and examples reach us clearly through our brothers Alberto and Francisco. We know that they are not guilty, but rather are defenders of social guarantees.” Santiz López, a native of Tenejapa, “was not even present at the acts of which he is accused, in the community of Banavil, as has been widely demonstrated.”

As for Patishtán, “for his dignified rebellion” in the prisons where he has been confined since 2000, “the Mexican State treats him with particular brutality.” The New Zealand activists demand freedom for all the political prisoners in Chiapas: “Prison, repression and impunity cannot and should not continue to prevail in Mexico.”

En español:http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/06/06/politica/021n1pol

English translation by the Chiapas Support Committee for the:
International Zapatista Translation Service, a collaboration of the:
Chiapas Support Committee, California
Wellington Zapatista Support Group
UK Zapatista Solidarity Network