Un documental que cuenta las historias de unos mexicanos indocumentados que viven en Richmond, Va., un viaje de su amiga norteamericana donde visita el pueblo de los indocumentados y la realidad de atravesar la frontera entre los E.U. y México...
Issue 58 - April 2008
Hello CASA Friends!
It is a truly exciting (and tiring) time of year for everyone in the Chiapas Peace House collective. We now have nine volunteers, most of them recently arrived, which has created a very dynamic space. We have used this as an opportunity to strengthen ourselves as a collective and launch new projects and activities. Some of the ideas we’ll be working on over the next few months include hosting film debates to generate funds and publishing a local zine in Spanish.
Facing Escalating Protests, Chiapas Frees 30 Political Prisoners
Kristin Bricker
With 17 prisoners still inside, the Other Campaign declares April 3 an International Day of Action
Zacario Hernandez released from prison
March 25, 2008 By Loren Guerriero
In Chiapas, the incidence of incarcerated social fighters is astounding. In some cases, political enemies bribe legal officials and judges to incarcerate social fighters. In others, the government targets leaders of social movements. Some political prisoners report that they were tortured during interrogation, forcing them into self-incrimination. Others report that they were not provided with a translator and thus couldn’t defend themselves. All report some form of fabricated charges and lack of due process in court. Afterwards many political prisoners are physically and psychologically abused by prison guards and administrators. Their contact to the outside world is unlawfully restricted, preventing them from communicating with friends and family. Many file petitions for case revisions, but frequently the petitions are either delayed for long periods of time, or more often, arbitrarily denied.
Cesare Batistti and the 40 years of ‘68
By Leila Saraiva
It was Thursday, visiting day in the Federal Police Station of Brasilia. The place doesn’t inspire much confidence. Police enter and leave with their distinguished expressions and uniforms. We wait our turn.
3:00PM. We go in with two bags full with 4 packets of cookies, 4 apples, 4 guayabas, 4 pears, several bottles of juice, cigarettes, 2 books, and 5 sheets of loose-leaf paper. All of this is to last until next Thursday. We enter the room where we will meet the very reason we are here. On the other side of the glass is Cesare Batisti.
Cesare is 53 years old and has been detained in Brasilia for 10 months. He has spent a good part of his life in hiding. All of this because, like us, he strives for a better world.
“We are of a very different constitution, us rebels and those damned cowards”
By Leila Saraiva
Saturday, March 22nd, some of us from CASA went to interview Jorge Salinas Jardón, ex-political prisoner of the Atenco conflict whose legal proceedings ended a month ago.
Jorge had come to Chiapas to participate in one of the Caravans Against Repression making rounds in Zapatista communities. The Caravans are part of the “Worldwide Campaign in Defense of Autonomous Indigenous Lands and Territories in Chiapas, Mexico, and the World”, whose goal is to create a presence of Mexican social fighters in order to observe and denounce repression against autonomous communities.
Violations of Zapatista Autonomy: Experiences on CAPISE’s Brigade 53
By Alyne dos Santos Goncalves and Cassio Brancaleone
On January 1, 2006, the Zapatistas proposed an initiative to tour all of Mexico in order to articulate broad networks of collaboration and solidarity among localized social movements “from the grassroots and the left”, putting into practice two central points of the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle of June 2005. The tour around different Mexican states was baptized as “The Other Campaign,” a counter-reference to the presidential campaign that was beginning at that time. The objective of The Other Campaign wasn’t, however, to make electoral promises, but rather to listen to different voices of social and popular movements at the margin of the system, whose struggles necessarily leave them outside the framework of political parties and institutions. This first phase meant learning about other ways of struggling against the oppression of the social, economic and political system imposed from above.
Virginia Activists to Expose the U.S./Mexico Border
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Virginia Leavell
virginia@mexicanossinfronteras.org
(email to be placed on a list for regular updates)
202-674-0900
April 3, Global Day of Action for Chiapas Hunger Strikers
From La Otra Jovel, 4/1/2008 (Translated from Spanish)
Compañeros y compañeras:
As you may know, many of our prisoner compañeros on hunger strike were set free yesterday, as well as another hundred prisoners who were not participating in the protest, as part of a media spectacle whose aim was to fool and confuse public opinion.
