Proven Injustice

Gloria Muñoz Ramírez, Los de Abajo

Right now he is awaiting, quietly and in good spirits, recognition of his innocence. He has been imprisoned for 13 years in various prisons in Chiapas, as well as a period in a high security penitentiary in Sinaloa. Today he is in Social Rehabilitation Centre No. 5, in San Cristobal de las Casas, unafraid, five days from the issue of its final decision by the first collegiate tribunal of the twentieth circuit, based in Tuxtla Gutierrez.

It is the last opportunity for the Tzotzil teacher and activist Alberto Patishtán to regain his freedom. A pardon, or a presidential reprieve, he has said, is not in his expectations. He deserves to go free because he is innocent. 13 years ago they sentenced him to a term of 60 years on false charges, accused of a murder he did not commit, with a rigged and discriminatory process, like that which keeps thousands of indigenous people detained in the prisons of this country. Patishtán owes nothing to anyone and therefore no one has to forgive him. His release is a legal matter, not a political one, and no one, apart from his family and members of civil society who have accompanied him, deserves credit for his freedom.

At this time he is the Mexican political prisoner with the most support in the world. Noam Chomsky, Pablo González Casanova, Samir Amin, Leonardo Boff and Elena Poniatowska, along with thousands of people from around the world, are demanding his immediate release due to the serious violations of process and human rights of which he has been a victim. Patishtán is, of course, not the only person who is imprisoned unjustly, but he represents the chain of violations which the Mexican government pours over those who fight for their rights, like the teacher did in El Bosque, his community, and as he now does from prison. Evidence is now presented which invalidates the process by which he was tried and sentenced to prison. And the teacher has already had to endure 13 years of the inhuman living conditions found in any of the prisons in Chiapas, where he has been a victim of torture and the constant violation of his most basic rights. In his confinement he has suffered phases of humiliation and abuse, it is not for nothing that he has defended and organised the defence of his compañeros behind bars, who he helped to become politicised until, finally, they gained their freedom. He took out one by one those who had shared cell and destiny at his side.

On June 19th, 2000, Alberto Patishtán was arrested for the murder of seven municipal police in El Bosque. There have been 13 years, two months and 19 days of proven injustice, and only five days remain for the system to admit its mistakes.

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/09/07/index.php?section=politica&article=012o1pol