May 1, 2013
Translated by Scott Campbell
[Spanish original]

TO THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA
TO CONSCIOUS PEOPLE AND STUDENTS
TO THE COLLECTIVES AND ORGANIZATIONS IN STRUGGLE AND RESISTANCE
TO ALL THOSE WHO CARRY A NEW WORLD IN THEIR HEARTS

With profound indignation we denounce the aggression we were subjected to this May Day by the state and municipal police in the service of the rich and the state government, under the command of the criminal, murderer, and fascist Gabino Cué Monteagudo (which has been called the “government of change”), showing again the repressive policies guiding the repressive forces of the state and capital, in coordination with the murderer and oppressor of Atenco, Enrique Peña Nieto, not caring that all kinds of people had been participants in the demonstration, from children, elderly, even mothers. This is the change that we have received during the three years of his government, though his actions follow the same repressive policies of the tyrant Ulises Ruiz, without forgetting Peña Nieto who now sitting in the presidential chair continues his dirty, repressive and murderous policies. Today, as yesterday, we remain oppressed, just like the compañeros in Guerrero, Michoacán, DF and other geographic locations and resistance groups.

In this brutal attack, the police detained some of the youth who were protesting, such as:

• Javier Martínez Pantaleón
• Omar Pérez García
• Gerardo Fisher Luna
• Abigail Fajardo Hernández
• Israel Gallardo Cruz
• Jorge Antonio López Esteban
• Epifanio Sánchez Caballero
• Claudio Atoneogenes Estebez Rojas
• Mauro Alberto Vásquez López
• Salvador Vasquez Suarez
• Felipe Franco Flores
• Irving Bernardo
• Alberto Manuel Muñoz
• Mario cruz Castillo
• Omar Gonzales Herrera
• Jorge López Chávez
• Desirée Villavicencio cruz
• Susana Irais Ramírez Giménez
• Danei Giménez Hernández
• Miranda Vargas Sánchez
• Alfonso Vázquez Belleza
• Javier Dario Canul Melchor
• Fredy Damián López Méndez
• Pedro Cesar Ruiz Gopar
• Javier Martínez Pantaleón
• Francisco Armando Álvarez Espíritu
• Omar Pérez García
• Ausencio Reyes Arista
• Julio Diego Vázquez
• Manuel Ramírez Jiménez
• Pedro Peralta José
• Luis Alfredo Hernández Sánchez
• Mario Vásquez Pablo
• Fernando Guzmán Gutiérrez
• Paulina Rueda Castellanos

Some compañeros were attacked by paramilitaries who kidnapped other youth with a red Tsuru with license plates TKR 5739.

Along with the physical and psychological attacks, our compañeros were also sexually assaulted. There are photos and videos of our compañeras being stripped as they were being detained, without knowing what awaited them ahead.

We are also aware of two compañeros wounded by bullets that were fired during the demonstrations.

And of others who were beaten and others who remain missing.

In the face of these repressive acts, we demand the immediate release of all our compañeros, holding responsable the commander, facist and repressor Gabino Cué Monteagudo, the State Attorney General Manuel de Jesús López López, the Public Security Secretary Marco Tulio López Escamilla, the head of the police operation, Commander M. Aguirre, and all those officers who participated in these brutal attacks.

FREEDOM FOR ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!!
MAY MEMORY BURY THOSE WHO CONDEMN THE RESISTANCE!!
IN THE RESISTANCE, OUR RESPONSE IS NOT VIOLENCE, IT IS SELF DEFENSE!!

COLECTIVO BARRO NEGRO
CONSEJO INDIGENA POPULAR DE OAXACA – RFM
ESTUDIANTES UNIVERSITARIOS INDEPENDIENTES
COLECTIVO LIBERTARIO MAGONISTA

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Three letters from political prisoners David Venegas and Efrén Hernández from Ixcotel Prison in Oaxaca

Political arrests in Oaxaca: The case of David Venegas, el Alebrije

Letter from David Venegas Reyes and Feliciano Efrén Hernández Pablo from Ixcotel Prison
March 30, 2013
[Spanish original]

Thursday, March 28, we, Feliciano Efrén Hernández Pablo and David Venegas Reyes, were violently detained by members of the State Investigatory Agency (AEI), accused of robbing a taxi driver who minutes earlier had given a ride to David Venegas Reyes and two compañeras, and who tried to rob them but they didn’t allow it. After getting out of the taxi, they arrived at the house of Feliciano Efrén Hernández Pablo, and when we left for the store the agents detained us, and without any explanation, violently put us in police vehicles in spite of the fact that several neighbors tried to stop them because there was no reason for our detention. To avoid more violence, we decided to let them take us. Yet in spite of that, David Venegas Reyes was beaten in the face, back and chest by an agent during the drive to the State Attorney General’s Office (PGJE), in La Experimental, Oaxaca, and later was again beaten in the face and stomach by another agent in the PGJE building.

The behavior of the PGJE and the government of Gabino Cué show that the clear intention behind the fabrication of this robbery is to criminalize us for robbery and thereby be able to issue another arrest warrant against David Venegas Reyes in order to please the PRI and Enrique Peña Nieto. The government of Gabino Cué has acted as a cudgel to defend the PRI since the APPO movement in 2006 and up until now in the struggle against the imposition of Peña Nieto. We will continue the struggle against the PRI and its neoliberal, privatizing policies. Gabino Cué forgets that he and the whole corrupt clique that surrounds him came into power not because of who they are but because of the complete rejection of the PRI, that we the people of Oaxaca have opposed and which since 2006 murdered 26 compañeros and compañeras of Section 22 and of the peoples of Oaxaca during the government of the murderer Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.

Gabino Cué betrays the trust of those who at one time believed in him, but no, not us, as we never believed in the farce of the so-called “bourgeoisie” in Oaxaca, and we always understood that a change of masters and of political parties in power means nothing for those yearning for justice, freedom, dignity and peace that we the peoples of Oaxaca and Mexico have fought for over the past 500 years. The sellout Gabino Cué continues on the path of all those oppressors of the people, signaling a dark future for Oaxaca. We make a fraternal and urgent call to all those persons, organizations and peoples who share our desire for justice to actively join us in solidarity in order to obtain our physical freedom. The powerful are very sure that the movement is weakening and is incapable of rebelling in the face of the abuse of power.

Second letter from Feliciano Efrén Hernández Pablo and David Venegas Reyes
March 31, 2013
[Spanish original]

Today, March 31, 2013, being held in the Santa María Ixcotel Penitentiary in Oaxaca, we want to denounce that instead of being sent to the preventive holding section as is the norm, we were placed in a section for prisoners who have already been sentenced. We are the only two who have recently been placed in this area. Yesterday (March 30), at approximately 10am, the section we were in had a “routine” inspection that consisted  of humiliating treatment for all the prisoners, including those who have sentences, and we were stripped totally naked and forced to do squats in front of the prison guards in order to show that we weren’t hiding drugs in our anuses. Why would there be drugs inside of a prison? After this inspection and while we were giving statements to the Public Ministry, a book and toilet paper were taken from the cell we are being held in.

Where we are, we are only allowed to leave to go to the bathroom and bathe twice a day for a very short time, which does not meet our needs.

We are not asking for special treatment or privileges of any kind. We are political prisoners of the government of Gabino Cué and we demand they do not humiliate us or violate – more than they already have – our human rights. We are willing to face trial for what the government and its PRI figureheads accuse us of. We are sure that if this trial is based in truth and justice we would not be here; however the government of Oaxaca abuses the power which the people of Oaxaca have confided in it and which Gabino Cué has betrayed. Not just because of our unjust imprisonment but because of the enormous series of injustices and attacks that the “new government of the sellouts” has committed against communities, organizations and people who struggle.

We call specifically on human rights organizations in Oaxaca, the country and the world to be alert to and to check if they attack our human rights inside of this central penitentiary of Santa María Ixcotel, Oaxaca.

Fraternally and combatively,
Feliciano Efrén Hernández Pablo
David Venegas Reyes “Alebríje”

“Do all the good that you can, by all the means that you can, in all the ways that you can, in all the places that you can, at any hour that you can, with all the time that you can.”
- Graffiti on the walls of our cell.

Statement from David Venegas Reyes
April 2, 2013
[Spanish original]

In my defense:

I have not been to many countries, the farthest I’ve reached is Guatemala, but I am convinced that the Oaxacan media is the worst in the world.

Pragmatic mercenaries who without ideological distinction sell themselves to the highest bidder. Their objectivity is a joke and their subjectivity is money. Among them, the worst are the ones who are the most consistent, the minority who loyally follow their respective masters and political parties. Be they in power or not, they are their loyal lackeys. The “best” are the majority, and they change their opinion just as money changes hands.

Fortunately, and as always, there are exceptions; serious journalists dedicated to the truth.  But they are the exception that proves the rule. They are like new thread used to mend a rotten rag - a regrettable waste.

In recent days, since my incarceration in the Central Penitentiary of Santa María Ixcotel, some media outlets have said that I am a career criminal and recall that I was jailed in 2007 under the murderous government of Ulises Ruiz, accused of possession of cocaine and heroin; as well as having set fire to eight buildings in the historic center of the city of Oaxaca on November 25, 2006, the day of repression by the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) against the peoples of Oaxaca. Other media outlets say that I am a disgraced ally of Gabino Cué. But what no media outlet says is that since my detention and incarceration on April 13, 2007 and up to this moment, I have been detained seven times by two governments. Twice during the government of the murderer Ulises Ruiz and five times during the current government of the hypocrite Gabino Cué; as well as surviving the PRI-UBISORT paramilitary attack against the humanitarian caravan to San Juan Copala on April 27, 2010, ordered by Ulises Ruiz, where Bety Cariño and Jyri Antero Jaakkola were murdered. Much less do these media outlets mention that in all these cases I have been freed after proving my innocence of the various crimes they made up and that this shows the deceitfulness of the governments who accused me.

I have never taken legal action against those who have accused me, nor have I cared about what the governments, political parties and media think about me. Unlike all of them, who live to sell to the people of Oaxaca – of course, even if they believe it – a false image, created by themselves, of themselves as democrats; I live from my job as a waiter, handing plates of food to workers on their way to their jobs. However, when one of these lies manages to makes its way through the walls of this prison, I can’t but help to respond with a little bit of truth, in the hope that it can make its way back from this little prison to the great vision out there.

Each version, different from one another, does nothing but reveal the source of the poison. The PRI press, which says and shouts loudly that I am a disgraced ally of the government of Gabino Cué, as well as the Gabinista press which says that I am a career criminal to whom the law is finally being applied, and finally I am where I belong. Each of them are somewhat right, which I will explain: The day I was detained with my compañero Feliciano Efrén Hernández “El Gallo,” we shared a cell in the PGJE – and now in prison in Ixcotel – with a man detained for robbing some pills and moisturizer from an Aurrera store while the Oaxacan media was bought and bribed with a trip to Mexico City, paid for with money from the peoples of Oaxaca, by the government of the sellout Gabino Cué and his countrymen from the Spanish company Moreña Renovables. All so that they could see with their own eyes the wonder that are the wind parks in Oaxaca, “wonders” that seek to impose themselves with blood and fire against the will of the Binizaa and Ikjootg peoples who resist being displaced from their lands and who fight to defend their ancestral way of life in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec against these foreign wind power companies.

The Oaxacan media are modern-day Malinches, dazzled by the mirrors of the Spanish companies, who like the monarchies of 500 years ago grunt like pigs searching for gold in our lands.

They are right, today everyone is where they should be and with whom they should be. They – the Oaxacan media – rely on and eat from the hand of the government of Gabino Cué and from the foreign companies who loot Mexico, while I, like the mess food in prison, in the company of criminals of poverty, ignorance, hunger and lumpenization, yes, everyone is where they should be and with whom they should be.

But just as today they share the riches with the looters and the corrupt, they will also share the fate that the people of Mexico hold for them in a not too distant future.

A fraternal greeting to the free, alternative and dignified media, and to those few serious and honest journalists in the mainstream media. But primarily to all those free men and women who think for themselves, and with the light of their own intelligence illuminate the darkness which the mass media wishes to submerge us in.

We remain here, resisting and certain that in the end, as always, the truth will triumph and will set us free.

From the Central Penitentiary of Santa María Ixcotel,
Oaxaca de Magón, April 2, 2013.

David Venegas “Alebríje”

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Palestin@s por la Dignidad exige apoyo para la firmeza de los presos en huelga de hambre y condena fuertemente el cierre de las oficinas del Comité Internacional de la Cruz Roja en Ramallah.

Nuestros presos valientes, Samer Issawi, Ayman Sharawneh, Ja’far Ezzedine y Tareq Qa’dan continúan su lucha heroica en contra de la ocupación y el terrorismo del estado, así como los crímenes cometidos diariamente contra nuestros presos.

Para apoyar la firmeza y resolución de los presos, en el interior del edificio del CICR en Ramallah, el Jeque Khader Adnan anunció su propia huelga de hambre en el día 11 de febrero 2013. En un paso inesperado y decepcionante, en respuesta, el CICR cerró sus oficinas en Ramallah en la cara de las familias de los presos y detenidos, en lo que constituye un castigo colectivo contra los presos y sus familias.

El cierre de su oficina por parte del Comité Internacional de la Cruz Roja es un acto de provocación y chantaje vulgar. El Comité rechaza su papel de proporcionar servicios como resultado de nuestro pueblo de principios ejerciendo su derecho de apoyarse unos a otros, una acción congruente con las políticas de la ocupación israelí. Estas mismas políticas quitan cualquier valor de la labor del Comité, a pesar de ser una organización internacional que supuestamente, bajo de las leyes humanitarias internacionales, es responsable de la protección del nuestro pueblo y presos.

Palestin@s por la Dignidad afirma su apoyo a los presos en las cárceles de Israel y no abandonará los que están en huelga de hambre. Ni van a dejar que el Jeque Khader Adnan se encuentra solo, y exigen al CICR a tomar responsabilidad y atender al sufrimiento de los presos y sus familias mediante la reapertura inmediatamente de sus oficinas.

Invitamos a nuestro pueblo palestino, tanto en el país como en el extranjero, a permanecer unidos detrás de sus héroes que están creando su propia libertad con su resistencia y orgullo.

Palestin@s por la Dignidad

Libertad para los presos palestinos

On Friday, January 11, Palestinians established the tent village of Bab al-Shams on Palestinian land recently approved for illegal settlement construction by Israel.

In a pre-dawn raid on Sunday, January 13, hundreds of Israeli forces evicted the village.

On Tuesday, January 15, activists attempted to return to Bab al-Shams.

Read more on Bab al-Shams here: http://electronicintifada.net/tags/bab-al-shams

[Original en inglés]

Samer al-Barq ya ha estado en huelga de hambre durante 111 días, además de los de 30 días que pasó anteriormente en la huelga de hambre masiva del abril-mayo 2012. Ahora es el preso que más tiempo ha pasado en huelga de hambre en cualquier parte del mundo, asumiendo este título de su compatriota, el preso Akram Rikhawi. 

Está en huelga junto con Hassan Safadi, quien ha resistido durante 81 días, sumados a los 71 días de su previa huelga de hambre, y con Ayman Sharawna, quien ha estado rechazando comido durante 71días. Los tres están sufriendo complicaciones médicas muy graves, incluyendo problemas de riñón, de perdido de conocimiento, y de sistemas inmunes suprimidos, confirmado por Addameer, Médicos para Derechos Humanos – Israel y al-Haq. Actuén ahora para llamar a su libertad inmediata y salvar las vidas de Samer al-Barq, Hassan Safadi y AymanSharawna!

Tuitea Ahora: Act now for #PalHunger strikers #SamerAlBarq #HassanSafadi #AymanSharawna Lives on the Line for Palestine! Act: http://samidoun.ca/?p=1456

Los tres hombres se están manifestando contra el incumplimiento israelí con el acuerdo del 14 de mayo (y acuerdos previos) entre el movimiento de los presos y el Servicio de Prisiones Israelí. Una de las provisiones de este acuerdo era que el castigo de detención administrativa no seria renovado. Sin embargo, el 21 de mayo – solo una semana después del acuerdo – la detención administrativa de al-Barq fue renovada y él empezó de nuevo su huelga de hambre. Safadi se unió a la huelga el 21 de junio, cuando su orden de detención administrativa fue renovada.

Por otro lado, dejaron en libertad a Ayman Sharawna en octubre de 2011 como parte del acuerdo de intercambio de los presos. Sin embargo, le detuvieron de nuevo en enero de 2012 y desde entonces él ha estado detenido sin cargo. Ayman inició su huelga de hambre el 1 de julio, seis meses después de su detención.

Acción urgente es necesario para proteger las vidas de estos presos palestinos. Han sido encarcelados juntos en una celda de aislamiento que mide 1.8 metros por 1.5 metros, sin espacio por una silla de ruedas, y actualmente están encadenados de manos y pies a sus camas de hospital, a pesar de que sus doctores informan de las graves amenazas médicas ocasionadas por estas condiciones. Es urgente que actuemos ahora para liberar a Samer, Hassan y Ayman y asegurar la atención medica que necesitan.

¡TOMA ACCION!

1. Firma una carta exigiendo que el estado israelí traslade inmediatamente a Samer al-Barq, Hassan Safadi y AymanSharawna a un hospital y que les dejan en libertad. Haz un click aquí para firmar.
2. Firma una carta a la Comité Internacional de la Cruz Roja para exigir que se cumple con sus obligaciones a los presos palestinos y que se actúe para salvar las vidas de Samer al-Barq, Hassan Safadi y AymanSharawna. Haz un click aquí para firmar.

On May 15, 2012, around 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside Israel's Ofer military prison near Ramallah, Occupied Palestine, to mark the 64th anniversary of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the establishment of the state of Israel. At least 63 protesters were injured as Israeli forces deployed tear gas, plastic-coated steel bullets, "Exact Impact" rounds, skunk water and concussion grenades.

The Murder of Bety and Jyri: We Demand Justice
April 27, 2012, Two Years Since the Murder of Bety and Jyri
By Omar Esparza
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

To Felipe Calderón Hinojosa,
President of Mexico

To Gabino Cué Monteagudo
Governor of Oaxaca

To public opinion

Two years could be called easy for those who have not lost a loved one in a violent way; for those who decide the changes that the masses will face, arguing that they do so for the well-being of the country; for those who claim to represent Mexico and who impose, with arrogance, social control strategies in order to generate fear and, with them, militarize the country and strengthen their policies in order to criminalize society until reaching the point of establishing a terrorist state that persecutes, assassinates, jails and disappears those of us who are not in agreement with them.

This war is a smokescreen that hides what is really happening: the displacement from our territories, the looting of our natural resources, the loss of our sovereignty, the dismantling of all resistance, the rupturing of the social fabric and the dismantling of all the forms of organization that the original peoples have maintained for millennia. All of this seeks to turn our free will into obedience, which has created a deep wound in our country, in our peoples, and has left thousands of orphaned children, widowed women, mothers without children or husbands, women disappeared and violated, all victims of a violence which doesn’t stop and continually repeats itself in this country.

As well, two years later, I cannot speak of Bety Cariño and Jyri Jaakkola without naming and demanding justice for the assassinations of many social leaders, women and men who defended our rights. Children, women and men who today live displaced from their communities for defending autonomy and the self-determination of the peoples; because they proposed a different way of doing politics, that which is born and built from below. All of these women and men at one moment made the decision to not keep quiet and to confront the tyranny which still reigns in our country, something that is not easy, as they are undermined by the orders of those who should be imparting justice, the political class, the political parties, and organized crime. In the end, they are all the same.

Two years since our compañera Bety was stolen from us, the government that Felipe Calderón represents has again and again failed to keep its word. Where are the commitments made by the attorney general, who filled her mouth with claims that those implicated in the murder have been detained? Because those who were there know their names: Rufino Juárez was not detained nor has he been tried for the murder of Bety Cariño and Jyri Jaakkola. They wanted to trick us!

Because today, yet again, two years later, we continue seeing how murderers and tyrants like Ulises Ruiz Ortiz and all those who decided to attack the caravan on the way to San Juan Copala on April 27, 2010 are rewarded and defended.

Given the absence and incompetence of the Attorney General it had to be us, the family members, who investigated and sought out the truth. On the other hand, in recent days, representatives of the federal government tried by all possible means to avoid legal actions against Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Thus, I ask, where are the commitments you uphold, Mr. President, Mr. Governor, after two years of lies to the Finnish government, to the relatives of Jyri, to the European Parliament members and to a society that demands JUSTICE, as with all the family members of the 60,000 dead during your term? I only wish to say to them that we, like you, know the TRUTH! We know that you don’t want this crime to be solved.

At the same time, for us it is not enough to arrest those who killed Bety: we demand the dismantling of the networks of control and impunity, that all those implicated as responsible be punished, among them those who held posts in the three levels of the previous government of Oaxaca, many of them linked to UBISORT paramilitaries.

And again, we invite you to the mobilization we will hold on April 27 in Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca, at the peak of El Chacuaco, at nine in the morning. Relatives of Bety and the Zapatista Indigenous Agrarian Movement hope you will join us, to remember and to say that Bety lives in the memory of those who seek a different world, in the history of a people who continue struggling for their dignity, and in our hearts.

For the demilitarization and deparamilitarization of Oaxaca and the country!

Justice for all of the 60,000 dead in the war against organized crime!

Jail those materially and intellectually responsible for the execution of Bety and Jyri!

Justice for Bety Cariño!

Justice for Jyri Jaakkola!

Justice for our families!

End impunity now!

Omar Esparza
MAIZ
(Zapatista Indigenous Agrarian Movement)

More than 1,000 Palestinians gathered at Qalandia checkpoint in occupied Palestine on March 30, 2012, to take part in a demonstration commemorating the 36th anniversary of Land Day and the Global March to Jerusalem. 

Israeli forces repressed the demonstration with tear gas, plastic-coated steel bullets, skunk water cannons, a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), and concussion grenades. More than 150 demonstrators were wounded.

During the weekly Friday demonstration against land confiscation, settlements and Israel's occupation in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, a group of women tried to reach the village's spring - seized by the illegal Israeli settlement of Halamish two years ago. While Israeli settlers freely visited the spring, the Israeli army and Border Police repeatedly blocked the inhabitants of Nabi Saleh and their supporters from reaching the spring, using force and threats of arrest.

On March 22, a small demonstration was held in front of the Palestinian Authority's headquarters (al Muqata'a) to demand the release of the hunger-striking political detainee held by Israel, Hana Shalabi, and to protest the failure of the PA to act on her behalf.

In their limited English (and my non-existent Arabic) the children at the protest shared their demands for the freedom of Hana Shalabi, previous hunger-striker Khader Adnan, and for a free Palestine.