*The Governor of Chiapas
visits the teacher and the prisoners of the Voice of el Amate
*He says he will present
their cases to President Enrique Peña, because he believes they are
innocent
Hermann Bellinghausen,
La Jornada, 19th
April 2013
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas - Today at 16.30, Governor Manuel Velasco visited the teacher Alberto Patishtán Gomez and the prisoners of the Voice of el Amate and Solidarity [with the Voice of El Amate], at Prison No. 5 in San Cristóbal de las Casas, and promised to arrange the release of Patishtán and a new review of the cases against the other prisoners, with whom he spoke personally.
The Chiapas Attorney General Raciel López Salazar and the State Secretary of Public Security, Jorge Luis Llavén, accompanied the Governor. Velasco Coello asked them to investigate the cases of the prisoners who he considered to be [imprisoned] unjustly.
The state governor expressed
a personal interest in Patishtán's case and told him he was convinced of his
innocence and promised to present his situation to President Enrique Peña Nieto,
during today's visit by the President to Chiapas.
Both Patishtán and the
organizers, from the municipality of El Bosque, of a pilgrimage by the Believing
People [Pueblo Creyente] of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, to
be held on Friday morning in the state capital, have been under pressure from
state officials to suspend the demonstration.
Presumably this is because
the march coincides with President Peña Nieto's visit to Chiapas, accompanied by
former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, with the aim of
relaunching the National Campaign against Hunger from Navenchauc in Zinacantán,
not far from Tuxtla Gutiérrez.
On Tuesday, the
Under-Secretary of Government for the Northern Region, Moisés Zenteno, addressed
the El Bosque Movement for the Freedom of Alberto Patishtán, and demanded
suspension of the act in Tuxtla Gutiérrez. He even claimed to give the
indigenous people an ultimatum to do so. However, they replied that it was not
in their hands to stop the call.
Later that night, envoys
sent by the Under-Secretary interviewed Patishtán in Prison Number 5, where he
is imprisoned, asking him to suspend the demonstration by the Pueblo Creyente
and various social organizations, who will demand his freedom before the
Appellate Court. The Profe, as he is known, has spent nearly thirteen
years in prison for no other reason than that of revenge for an old longstanding
political dispute in his town. When the Under-Secretary's envoys arrived, they
found Patishtán in a protest fast together with other prisoners who belong to
la Sexta.
Arguing that Governor
Velasco Coello has publicly repeated that, in his opinion, Patishtán ought to be
released, the envoys of the Chiapas Secretary of Government tried,
unsuccessfully, to avert Friday's pilgrimage-march. This will culminate,
organizers announced, at the headquarters of the District Appeals Court in
Tuxtla Gutiérrez, which will rule in the coming days on the appeal to review the
case and reconsider the sixty-year sentence imposed on the Tzotzil
teacher.
It appears that the
democratic teachers, currently meeting to define measures regarding the
education reform, will join the pilgrimage for Patishtán's
release
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