Seattle University School of Law held a forum today on Nestora Salgado. The event was put on by her husband, José Luis Avila, and daughter, Grisel Rodriguez.
Seattle University School of Law forum on Nestora Salgado
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México: Nestora Salgado escribe desde prisión con motivo del Día Internacional de la Mujer Trabajadora
Mensaje de la comandante Nestora a las mujeres, en su día internacional en voz de su hermana Cleotilde Salgado
Me llamo Nestora Salgado García, tengo 42 años, tres hijas y cuatro nietos y una nieta. Estoy injustamente en la cárcel desde el 21 de agosto del año pasado. Aunque estoy encerrada y quieren abatirme mis captores, me dirijo con optimismo a lasmujeres en su día internacional. Este es un mensaje a lasmujeres de México y Estados Unidos, también a las mujeresde otros países en los que sufren discriminación. Mi mensaje a las mujeres es que no se dejen, que protesten y luchen si creen que son humilladas ya sea en su trabajo, en su localidad o en su misma casa.
La vida para las mujeres en países como México es muy difícil, sobre todo si somos de familias campesinas y de pueblos como el mío en medio de las montañas de Guerrero, estado donde siempre ha habido mucha pobreza y falta de todo tipo de servicios. También siempre ha habido mucha corrupción y abusos de los gobernantes.
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Statement by Nestora Salgado on International Women’s Day 2014
My name is Nestora Salgado García. I am 42 years old and have three daughters and four grandchildren. I have been unjustly jailed since August 21 of last year. Even though I am jailed and my captors want to break me, I speak to you with optimism on this International Day Women’s Day 2014.
This is a message to the women of Mexico and the United States, as well as the women of other countries where women suffer discrimination.
My message is to resist, to protest and to fight whenever you find yourself humiliated in your place of work, your community or even in your own home
The life of women in countries such as Mexico is very difficult, above all in campesina families and communities like mine in the mountains of Guerrero, a state which has always had a lot of poverty and inadequate levels of all types of services. Guerrero also has suffered a lot of corruption and abuse at the hands of government officials.
I have always worked to take care of my daughters, the first of whom was born when I was 16 years old. I had to emigrate from Mexico to the United States where I worked doing many things like cleaning houses and working as a waitress in restaurants. Through my own efforts, I managed to become a U.S. citizen. But I never forgot my roots, my parents, my brothers and sisters and my family who I frequently visited. Neither did I forget my community. I could not remain indifferent to what was taking place with my neighbors and in my hometown of Olinalá, which unfortunately was happening in other places in our cherished Mexico.
The abuses of organized crime had become commonplace every day. It had become impossible to live in peace. We could not leave our houses. We could not work, travel, mount a business or confidently send our children to school. We could not go to the town square in peace and enjoy an ice cream. So, the community suddenly organized itself and elected me as its representative. I became the coordinator of Olinalá community police.
In the beginning, the government officials supported the community police. The governor of Guerrero provided us with two vehicles and other support. We also received official documents designating us as community police.
As the community police, we did our job and we did it well. We served the community of Olinalá. We confronted organized crime and those who supported it. In the first year, the index of major crimes dropped by 90%. Maybe this is why the government ended up attacking us and taking me into custody together with 12 other CRAC (Regional Coordination of Community Authority- Community Police) in Guerrero.
I was arrested in an impressive display of military and police force, greater than any used previously in apprehending the worst drug traffickers. Within hours, I was sent to a high security prison in Nayarit where I am currently held as if I were a dangerous animal.
I am isolated from all the other inmates. One of my daughters and one of my sisters can only visit me every two weeks. I cannot speak to anyone. I never see the sun or enjoy sunshine. I receive none of the pain medication I need due to a car accident I suffered. I am allowed no magazines or newspapers. I cannot even receive a letter from my husband who is in the United States, nor a drawing from one of my grandchildren. I am allowed only a few minutes of conversation with my daughter Zaira. I cannot watch television.
I know they want to break me but this will not happen. I know that in locking me up they want to send a message to all the women and men in Mexico standing up against injustice. But they will not break me. I will never ask for forgiveness from my jailers. I have no reason to ask from anyone, especially the Mexican government. Out of my mouth and from my heart, you will hear only words of encouragement for all those who, like me, have committed themselves to accomplishing something for their communities and their families.
I want to speak especially to the women–to the wives and the mothers of the other imprisoned other community police. I say we will endure the cold prison. And we believe that the day is near when we will be free.
To all women, I say: Do not give in to anything or anyone. Do not tolerate any corrupt government official or mafia criminal. Do not tolerate discrimination or mistreatment from anyone.
To the women of Olinalá, I ask that you continue the struggle that we began a year ago with our husbands and neighbors.
My captors are piling up charges against me. But I know that in the end I will walk out of this jail. I will do so with my head high because I know that no one believes that I am a criminal. There are honest people in Mexico, in the United States and other countries who know that I am a political prisoner.
I will leave prison to take up once against the struggle for community police that I initiated.
Onward women of Mexico and the world! History teaches us that sacrifices are necessary to accomplish what we want. Let us stand fearless and determined to do away with evil and those who support it. This is how we women will build a bright and better future.
–From the high security prison in Tepic, Nayarit, March 7, 2014
Reprinted by: Libertad para Nestora/Freedom for Nestora–Seattle Committee
FreeNestora.Seattle@gmail.com . 206-722-2453 . Facebook.com/FreeNestora
5018 Rainier Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98118
MEXICO: Nestora Salgado’s Unjust Captivity
With all the recent talk in Mexico about Michoacán’s self-defence groups (Autodefensas), it would be easy to forget that citizen self-defence forces have existed for a while now. For example, the Community Police (PC) in Guerrero came into being around 1995 and, by 2011, had 750 members and three ‘Houses of Justice’ attending to 62 communities in 11 municipalities. The Law of Public Security, passed in 2007, and Law 701, from 2011, recognise this organisation as an additional, legal police authority.
The PC was formed to ensure the security of citizens in one of Mexico’s poorest, most volatile, and most militarised states, where several indigenous leaders have been murdered, women have been raped, people have disappeared, and several members of the PC of Olinalá have been arrested. Nestora Salgado is one of those who have been arrested.
After a turbulent youth, Nestora left for the US, where she…
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News from the Freedom for Nestora Salgado campaign
On March 7, the Mexico City Committee to Free Nestora will hold a press conference at which Nestora’s sister, Clotilde Salgado will speak. It will be broadcast live at 10:00am Mexico City time from the portal CENCOS (www.cencos.wordpress.com). It will be followed by a public forum at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and by a demonstration supported by a number of unions that have endorsed the campaign. They will all address the case of Nestora, and the plight of the community police in Guerrero and in Michoacán.The Mexican National Human Rights Commission has dispatched a team of investigators to look into the circumstances of Nestora’s arrest and incarceration to determine if they violate her civil and political rights. More on this when additional facts are available.
It has been six months since Nestora Salgado, a U.S. citizen and resident of Renton, Washington, was abducted from her hometown of Olinalá, Mexico and transported to a federal maximum security prison hundreds of miles away. She remains imprisoned today on trumped up charges related to her role as the elected leader of the indigenous police force in Olinalá, a force which defended the community against violent drug cartels and corrupt officials. Six months of inaction on her behalf by the U.S. government has resulted in grave hardship and deprivation for her and her family.
As her imprisonment and the arrest of other community police continues, the international campaign to free Nestora and her comrades is growing. Thus far it has encompassed a hunger strike by her husband Jose; an online petition campaign that has over 6300 signers; endorsements by over 120 organizations and prominent individuals; legal petitions filed with the U.N. and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; and a multi-city, multinational day of protest and picketing on International Human Rights Day, December 10. Protests took place at Mexican consulates in five U.S. cities and government offices in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica. There were also other actions in Australia, France and Argentina. Dozens of TV and radio interviews, as well as numerous newspaper articles in the U.S. and Mexico, have covered Nestora’s plight and the campaign to free her. Univision, the largest Spanish language TV network in the U.S., produced a short news report on her story.
Carrying out this campaign has entailed considerable expense for picket signs, photos, banners, informational flyers and transportation. Donations are urgently needed and gladly accepted to expand this campaign, please see below for more on how to make a donation. A shout out goes to the Frente de Resistencia por México which held a successful fundraising event in Los Angeles on February 22.
The Freedom for Nestora organizing committee and her family are keeping up a pressure campaign on members of the Washington State congressional delegation. As of yet, they have not acted on our request to urge Secretary of State John Kerry to intervene on Nestora’s behalf. Instead they have tried working through the U.S. consulate in Guadalajara with minimal results. Only after numerous visits by consulate staff was Nestora allowed to receive, but not make, international phone calls with her family. Additionally, after months of letting Nestora see only her sister, one of her daughters has recently been allowed visits. That and clean drinking water are all that the U.S. intervention have produced.
A critical situation
Prison officials continue to deny Nestora medical attention and the drugs needed to control the pain she suffers due to neuropathy. She is still barred from daily exercise (part of the treatment for her condition) and is restricted to her cell for all but an hour a week. Not surprisingly, she has lost considerable weight. Her sense of isolation is intensified by prison rules that forbid her contact with other inmates, even her cellmate.
The failure of Nestora’s congressional representatives and the U.S. State Department to aggressively intervene to free her has made her situation more difficult. Their lack of action has given a green light to increasingly punitive and exaggerated charges being brought against her by Mexican prosecutors. Six counts of kidnapping suddenly became 50 counts; coordinating legitimate community policing activities is now called leading a “criminal conspiracy”; and allowing community police officers to lawfully arm themselves with single shot rifles and machetes has become “weapons trafficking”.
Forcing Nestora to expend a great deal of the time and money to answer all these bogus charges is part of the Mexican government’s strategy to drain Nestora’s limited resources. Just getting copies of the files related to the plethora of charges against her will cost hundreds of dollars. This is on top of the heavy expenses involved in traveling hundreds of miles to and from the prison to visit Nestora.
Clearly federal and state prosecutors have been sabotaging Nestora’s right to effective legal representation. Government representatives have interfered not only with her right to see an attorney, but also with her choice of attorneys. The court refused to recognize her original lawyer who worked for a well-respected human rights organization and who had experience representing political prisoners. This delay tactic led the family in Guerrero to hire another attorney out of desperation. Unfortunately, he did not have the requisite qualifications to take on a political case like this. Only recently they secured a highly qualified law firm in Mexico City to represent her. But as of this writing–and six months after her arrest–she has still not seen an attorney.
Exciting news on the organizing front in Mexico
On January 17, a demonstration in the capital city of Guerrero demanded Nestora’s release along with other indigenous political prisoners. The Freedom for Nestora campaign issued a statement of solidarity that was widely publicized in the press in Mexico,including the two major newspapers in Guerrero. Two weeks later, on February 2, Nestora’s daughter Sayra spoke before a thousand supporters in Mexico City with the help of Partido Obrero Socialista (POS).
Other solidarity actions included a campaign kicked off by POS to produce and put up 2000 posters to raise public awareness of the case in Mexico. POS members were also instrumental in getting teachers in Oaxaca who belong to the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE) to endorse the solidarity campaign.
Labor and people of color organizations in the U.S. call for Nestora’s release
The Freedom for Nestora-Seattle campaign was highly visible at the January march and rally in Seattle commemorating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. King County Council Member Larry Gossett promoted the campaign and invited Nestora’s husband Jose Avila and her daughter Grisel Rodriguez to address the crowd of several thousand. The MLK Day Celebration Committee also passed a resolution calling on the Congressional Black Caucus to urge the State Department to take immediate action to secure Nestora’s release from custody.
The Freedom for Nestora campaign has been endorsed by an impressive list of labor organizations within the last month. They include: the Washington State Labor Council – AFL-CIO; Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters; Seattle/King County Building & Construction Trades Council; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 77; Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 8; Washington Federation of State Employees Local 843; Puget Sound Coalition of Labor Union Women; and Puget Sound Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.
International Women’s Day celebrations keep up the fight
Nestora’s campaign will be featured prominently in International Women’s Day events not only in Mexico City but in New York City, where members of YoSoy132, Nueva York will be on a panel on March 15. In Seattle, members of Nestora’s family will be speak at the annual celebration on March 14. On March 23 Nestora’s case will be one of several examples of repression against women leaders and activists discussed as part of a Bay Area IWD tribute.
As we learn of other events, we will let you know. ¡La lucha continua!
HELP FREE NESTORA! MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!
If you haven’t already, now is the time to sign the online Free Nestora Campaign Facebook page to volunteer and to check for new developments, meetings and activities.
This report was prepared by members of the Freedom for Nestora Committee– Seattle, Washington, U.S. Su Docekal, Coordinator
FreeNestora.Seattle@gmail.com
206-953-5601
WSLC joins campaign to release Renton woman from Mexican prison
(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 >>
Fundraiser for the Freedom For Nestora Campaign in Los Angeles
Video of a fundraiser held at the Los Angeles branch of the FSP.
La lucha por los derechos de los indígenas no conoce fronteras
La campaña para liberar a Nestora Salgado de la cárcel mexicana recibe apoyo internacional
Cuando la líder indígena Nestora Salgado, residente del estado de Washington y ciudadana naturalizada de EEUU, viajó al sur de la frontera de EEUU y México el año pasado, no esperaba acabar como prisionera política. El propósito de sus primeros viajes a su pueblo natal de Olinalá, Guerrero, fue llevar ayuda a los desesperadamente pobres residentes. Pero encontró al pueblo dominado por pandillas criminales y por traficantes de drogas, los cuales aterrorizan y asesinan a la población, violan a las niñas y difunden la prostitución y la adición a las drogas.
Cuando denunció la colusión entre los funcionarios mexicanos y estos rufianes, se encontró en la prisión, con falsos cargos de secuestro.
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Univision coverage of the Nestora case
Univision Noticias posted a short video about the Nestora Salgado case.
Solidarity Statement from the Freedom for Nestora – Seattle Committee
The Freedom for Nestora – Seattle Committee issued a Solidarity Statement on January 17, 2014 to a demonstration in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero standing with the demonstrators demanding freedom for all political prisoners in Mexico.
Read the statement here.
Freedom for Political Prisoners Committee 
