Mexico: Demand Grows for Release of Chiapas Schoolteacher

Groups in Argentina, Brazil, France, England, New Zealand, Scotland,
South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and the US are planning events in the
May 15-22 “Week of Global Struggle for the Liberation of Alberto
Patishtán Gómez and Francisco Sántiz López,” two indigenous prisoners
from the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas. The week of actions
was initiated by the New York-based Movement for Justice in El Barrio.

Patishtán Gómez, in prison since 2000, is serving a 60-year sentence
for his alleged involvement in the June 2000 killing of seven police
agents in El Bosque municipality. Local authorities initially
suspected drug traffickers, but prosecutors later shifted their
attention to supporters of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation
Army (EZLN). Most of El Bosque had been part of a pro-EZLN autonomous
municipality, San Juan de la Libertad, from 1995 until 1998, when it
was dismantled in a violent military operation [see Update #542].
Patishtán Gómez, a local schoolteacher, was the only suspect convicted
in the case, and the only witness against him was Rosemberg Gómez, the
son of Manuel Gómez Ruiz, then El Bosque’s mayor. Years later
Rosemberg Gómez reportedly would tell people when he was drunk that
he’d lied on instructions from his father, and that he got a new van
as a reward.

Sántiz López, an EZLN supporter, was arrested in December 2011 on
charges of leading a confrontation in Tenejapa municipality on Dec. 4
in which one person was killed. Twelve witnesses testify that he
wasn’t present during the fight. (Radio Zapatista 4/18/12; Upside Down
World 5/11/12; La Jornada (Mexico) 5/12/12)

Further info: dorsetchiapassolidarity.wordpress.com