Marchan más de 2 mil manifestantes en la capital para exigir la libertad de presos de la Policía Comunitaria
Participan familiares de detenidos, integrantes de la CRAC, de la CETEG y del SUSPEG, padres y familiares de los 43 normalistas, estudiantes de Ayotzinapa y activistas. Reiteran su rechazo a las reformas estructurales
Two months since Mexican political prisoner Nestora Salgado was freed after more than two and a half years in high-security jail, three of her colleagues from the community police force she organized in the violence-ridden state of Guerrero are still in prison on trumped up charges, the Mexican daily La Jornada reported Sunday.
Gonzalo Molino Gonzalez, Arturo Campos, and Samuel Ramirez, fellow members of Salgado’s regional community police force in Guerrero, were similarly jailed on charges of “fabricated crimes” and remain behind bars as their freed leader continues to fight for political prisoners in Mexico to be released.
“Our people were suffering kidnappings, extortion, rape of young girls, and I could not sit with my arms crossed,” Gonzales said in an interview with La Jornada of his decision to take up the struggle with the community police force organizing against rampant violence and the reign of drug cartels, fueled by widespread impunity.
“They can lock me up physically, but my freedom is inside of me,” he added. “My thinking, my ideas, and my heart are free.”
“Free Nestora.”
It’s not a rallying cry now, but a description of the grandmother and community police force leader who is back in Seattle after nearly 30 months in jail in Mexico.
Since her return Nestora Salgado has had moments of celebration, but the woman known as “La Comandante” is under no illusion that her fight is over.
“I need to go back because my people need me,” she said in Spanish, at an interview at her Renton home. “I know that community policing is necessary for the people, the organizing of the people. And if I can do it I’m going to do it, even I have to pay the highest cost.”
Two and a half years after she was thrown into a Mexican federal penal facility, arrested without a warrant and charged with kidnapping, indigenous community police leader Nestora Salgado was freed from Tepepan Women’s Social Rehabilitation Center in Mexico City mid-March.
A judge threw out the charges against Salgado on March 17 after stating they had no basis. While in custody, the activist originally from Olinala, Guerrero endured a stint in a maximum-security prison, solitary confinement, and the denial of medication and physical therapy she needed to fully heal from injuries she sustained in a car accident in 2002.
A day after her liberation order, Salgado participated in a news conference where she detailed the injustice and frustration surrounding her detainment. “I felt that I was buried alive in a drawer. I was out of touch for 20 months, in isolation for a crime that I did not commit. They didn’t even let me coexist with the other prisoners. I only saw them when I went to court. They treated me in the most brutal way that they could. It’s difficult to struggle against the government when they are out to get you, but it’s even worse that they did this when all I wanted was to defend my community,” stated Salgado.
La activista social y líder de la Policía Comunitaria de Olinalá, Guerrero, salió libre esta mañana después de que fuera encarcelada por secuestros que nunca se comprobaron. Distintos organismos internacionales, e incluso la ONU, habían señalado irregularidades durante su proceso. Esta tarde ofreció una conferencia de prensa donde exigió al Presidente Enrique Peña Nieto respeto a los pueblos y que no siga permitiendo la violación a la Constitución.
Nestora Salgado was immediately slapped with new charges after judges ordered her release, but lawyers are hopeful she will still soon walk free.
Jailed U.S.-Mexican activist Nestora Salgado remains in prison despite a court order demaning her release, some 30 months after being arrested. However, the weak footing of the new homicide and kidnapping charges leveled against her might mean she’s close to regaining her freedom, local media reported Wednesday.
Salgado, a Mexican-born U.S. citizen, was arrested in August 2013 on charges of kidnapping and engaging in organized crime after returning to her hometown of Olinala in the violence-ridden state of Guerrero to organize a community police force, and to take a stand against drug cartels and state complicity in violence.
Fue detenida por el Ejército y posteriormente incomunicada sin haber sido presentada en ningún momento ante un juez que determinara la legalidad de su detención, destaca el informe
A United Nations panel has ruled that Mexico’s 2013 arrest and continuing detention of a community police leader was illegal, raising hopes among her supporters she could be freed.
Nestora Salgado is a Seattle-area resident who returned to her native Mexico and led a vigilante-style – but legal – community police force, which mounted patrols to protect residents from cartel operatives.
A dual US-Mexico citizen, Salgado was arrested in August 2013 after people detained by her group alleged they had been kidnapped. A federal judge cleared her of those charges, but a related state case has kept her imprisoned.
Nestora Salgado, excoordinadora de la Policía Comunitaria en Olinalá, estado de Guerrero, México, dijo enAristegui que hoy en día está detenida porque no aceptó dinero del gobierno.
Salgado está recluida en el Centro Femenil de Readaptación Social de Tepepan, en donde habló con Aristegui. Fue detenida el 21 de agosto de 2013 por la Marina y el Ejército y acusada de secuestro. Además enfrenta cargos por un homicidio.
Today Karma Chavez talks with Grisel Rodriguez, daughter of Nestora Salgado, the indigenous Mexican woman imprisoned for fighting state violence.
Nestora Salgado is a naturalized U.S. born in Guerrero, Mexico. The indigenous activist moved to the United States in 1991, and returned two decades to help lead a rebellion against drug traffickers and corrupt local authorities.
Salgado has been detained by the Mexico government in a high-security prison for over two years now, after standing up to state violence and corruption in her hometown of Guerrero. She is currently being threatened with solitary confinement.
Grisel Rodriquez works with the Free Nestora Campaign, which was started by Salgado’s family in 2013. The Free Nestora Committee works in collaboration with the Comité Nestora Libre in Mexico, and demands freedom in several states in Mexico as well as Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Argentina and Europe.
Freedom for Political Prisoners Committee 