The following letter was sent to President Neito of Mexico, by the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade/Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL)

Enrique Pena Neito, President of Mexico:

 

As women in the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade/Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL) in Brazil, we want to address the state of Mexico by sending this letter to you as president to demand the immediate release of Nestora Salgado who has been imprisoned in inhumane conditions since August 2013.

 

Nestora is a leader of Coordinadora Regional de Autoridades Comunitarias/Regional Coordination of Community Authorities (CRAC) in Olinalá, Guerrero.

 

We stand in uncompromising solidarity with Mexican women who live with the fear caused by a society dominated by drug trafficking. Thousands of women are among the over 20,000 disappeared in Mexico.

 

We condemn the situation your government maintains over the lives of jobless women as a result of the neoliberal policies in your country which deliver it to imperialist powers. Thousands of women are raped, kidnapped and assassinated without your government taking any action to end this tragic situation. We know there are drug trafficking forces within your very government. These traffickers remain at large and unprosecuted, while those who took up arms to defend their lives and families are imprisoned and persecuted by your government.

 

We want to point out that Mexico today is the only country in the world where the people have to take up arms to defend themselves. This has occurred because your government, Mr. President, has abandoned people and left them to fend for themselves against the drug gangs. If your government provided security forces, the self-defense forces would not be necessary, and neither would Mexico’s prisons be full of hundreds of political prisoners.

 

What crime has Nestora Salgado and hundreds of other political prisoners in Mexico committed? It is really a crime to defend your own children from the threats of drug gangs? Is it a crime to defend the lives of our parents and siblings?

 

We cannot accept this and condemn your government before Brazilian public opinion and that of all of Latin America for imprisoning the poor people who defended themselves only with what they had: hand guns, hunting rifles, axes and wooden sticks.

 

PSOL women fight for a free world where freedom reigns. We do not accept the fact that Nestora Salgado and thousands of other political prisoners, who have committed no crime and were simply defending their lives and their families, remain jailed in your government’s prisons.

 

We demand the immediate release of Nestora Salgado and all the political prisoners in Mexico.

 
Women of Partido de Socialismo e Liberdade, Brazil