(Feb. 25, 2014) — At the direction of the Washington State Labor Council’s Executive Board, WSLC President Jeff Johnson has written U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to urge him to press for the release of a Nestora Salgado, a Renton woman who has been imprisoned in Mexico since Aug. 21, 2013.

According to a Seattle Weekly report on her arrest, Salgado, a naturalized U.S. citizen, “got swept up in the movement to fight violence, organized crime and what many believe is government corruption” in Olinalá, the remote, impoverished town where she was born.

Mexico’s federal law, and that of the state of Guerrero, gives indigenous people the right to form their own police force… many such community police forces have sprung up across the country. Olinalá’s even had the backing of Guerrero governor… Salgado, who had started spending months at a time in Olinalá, was elected leader of the that force. The governor might not have anticipated that Olinalá’s militia would arrest the town sheriff. (Sources say) the sheriff had been called upon to investigate the double-homicide of a father and son. Instead, they say, the town official tampered with the evidence at the crime scene and tried to steal the dead men’s belongings, including a cow.

Read more at TheStand.org >>