This afternoon I attended a forum on human rights abuses as part of a week long series of events sponsored by the Women of the First of August APPO group. Over sixty political prisoners remain in prison, primarily apprehended in November after the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) took over the capital. I have read many stories of the human rights abuses suffered by the prisoners and by others at the hands of the PFP, and I have reported some of those stories on this site. However, it is different to hear the testimonies of such abuses from the people and family members of those who suffered it–and continue to suffer. One after another, women and men told personal stories, many overcome by tears, of being beaten and detained by the PFP. They were also yelled at, humiliated, and terrified without given the basic rights of a lawyer or a phone call. For days, their family members did not know where they were. Others, like Alva Gomez discussed the major disruption of her family after three of her siblings were detained on November 25. Delfina Martinez Silva’s son was beaten and put in a coma for two months. Adrian Bautista Espinoza offered us a look into what it is like to have survived this ordeal. After his experiences of being beaten, detained, and flown to a prison in Tepit, he is bothered by the silence surrounding this issue. He sadly joked that the most common question people ask him is, “What was it like to ride in a helicopter?”
Families of the prisoners, ex-prisoners, and families of those missing demand that the silence be broken and that the government be held responsible for these crimes. A professor of economics at UNAM, who first spoke at the forum, claims that the victims have been criminalized whereas the government is the one going against the constitution.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, the Women of the First of August will sponsor a forum on the role of women in the movement at 4pm at la Facultad de Derechos, UABJO (in the zocalo).
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