Report on today's demonstration at Mexican Embassy in London: Freedom and Justic
EdinChiapas Solidarity Group | 29.06.2010 19:35 | Zapatista
Protestors defied police to take up position directly in front of the Embassy entrance, refusing police orders to move to the opposite side of the road. After around 20 minutes the possibility of arrest under the Public Order Act forced the dozen or so demonstrators to move a few yards back to a traffic island in the middle of the road.
Nevertheless leafleting continued right in front of the Embassy while Mexican revolutionary songs blasted out a message of defiance. Certainly the Embassy authorities were well aware of the protest as their Security officers were filming and photographing demonstrators.
"The Atenco prisoners have been imprisoned for the crime of standing up for the poor peasant farmers of the area," said Esther McDonald of the UK Zapatista Solidarity Network, who organised the protest. "It was therepresentatives of the state who committed violent atrocities at Atenco: Amnesty International has detailed shocking systematic sexual assaults and rapes by the police on 26 women during and after the police assault on Atenco in May 2006."
The events of 3rd /4th May 2006 were sparked off when police tried to arrest peasant farmers selling flowers in the street. When locals went to the flower-sellers aid and drove off the police, a massive state force gathered and then invaded Atenco. Police killed two youths, Alexis Benhumea and Francisco Javier Cortes, and arrested over 200 people. Dozens of homes were invaded without warrants, and hundreds of people were tear-gassed and beaten. Police subjected 26 women to serious sexual assaults, including rape, in attacks described by Amnesty International as "torture".
People had travelled from round Britain to demand liberty for the prisoners from the Peoples Front for the Defence of the Land, with protestors from Devon, Dorset, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Norwich and Sheffield joining London residents at the Embassy in Saint George Street, central London. Demonstrators held coloured paper flowers, to reflect the fact that the state attack began when the people organised to stop the violent expulsion of flower vendors from a central square in nearby Texcoco. 500 leaflets were distributed to passers-by as demonstrators displayed a giant banner FREE THE ATENCO PRISONERS.
THE AMBASSADOR’S ROLE
The leaflets (and the letter handed in to the Ambassador) also revealed the role Ambassador Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza himself had played in the infamous events: “Sr. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, currently Mexican Ambassador to the UK, was the Federal Secretary of Public Security.. at the time of the assault on Atenco, which he may have ordered and commanded. In 2009, the same Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation that is currently deciding the fate of the 12 prisoners, declared that neither Sr. Medina-Mora (who by now had been promoted to the position of Attorney General of the Republic) nor the Governor of the State of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, were in any way responsible for any of the human rights violations that took place in Atenco on 3rd and 4th May 2006. Only one of the eleven ministers who made the decision held Medina-Mora responsible for “failure to monitor the actions of the security services”. In fact, as Attorney General he failed to prosecute anyone for the human rights abuses committed by those security services.”
One of the demonstrators said: “The prisoners from the Peoples Front for the Defence of the Land deserve the solidarity of everyone who cares about justice. Their heroic struggle to successfully stop the construction of a new airport for Mexico City on their land is an inspiration to all who believe human needs must come before profit. The state can’t be allowed to get away with this political persecution.”
In their leaflets and publicity the UK Zapatista Solidarity Network declared that today's demonstration was also in support of the autonomous communities under attack in Mexico today, including San Juan Copala in Oaxaca and the Zapatista communities in Chiapas.
UK Zapatista Solidarity Network
http://ukzapatistas.wordpress.com Edinburgh Chiapas Solidarity Group
www.edinchiapas.org.uk
edinchiapas@yahoo.co.uk London Mexico Solidarity Group
www.londonmexicosolidarity.org
londonmexicosolidarity@lists.aktivix.org>
EdinChiapas Solidarity Group
e-mail:
edinchiapas@yahoo.co.uk
Homepage:
http://www.edinchiapas.org.uk
Additions
Photos of the Demo
30.06.2010 07:11
Defying the police
Free the Atenco Prisoners
Delivering the letter
EdinChiapas Solidarity Group
e-mail:
edinchiapas@yahoo.co.uk
Homepage:
http://www.edinchiapas.org.uk
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