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| Residents of the town of El Bosque in the Mexican state of Chiapas march outside the local prison in to demand the freedom of political prisoner Alberto Patishtan. (WNV/Moysés Zúñiga Santiago) |
Protests swept across Latin America, Europe and the United States in
September to demand the release of Mexican political prisoner Alberto
Patishtan Gomez after a Chiapas court rejected his legal challenge and
upheld his 60-year sentence. In New York City, people protested outside
the Mexican Consulate to demand the “immediate and unconditional”
liberation of Patishtan. Similar protests were held in Barcelona,
Paris, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Bogotá and several cities in Mexico,
including in Veracruz, San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico City and
Cuernavaca.
More than 16,000 people have signed Amnesty International’s letter
demanding freedom for the Tzotzil teacher, while in Mexico City, a
group of activist and organizations formed the Committee for Freedom for
Patishtan.
Since his imprisonment began 13 years ago, Patishtan has become one
of the most recognizable political prisoners in Mexico — not only
because no one outside the Mexican justice system believes he is guilty,
but also because of his ongoing efforts to promote human rights from
within prison. His story is both exceptional and, unfortunately, all too
common.
Patishtan comes from the town of El Bosque, situated in the high
mountains in Chiapas, a southeastern state of Mexico that borders
Guatemala. He is indigenous maya Tsotsil. Since his imprisonment, he has
focused on defending the rights of fellow indigenous people in prison,
who often find themselves unjustly imprisoned for not being able to
speak Spanish and not having access to a translator during trials. Known
to his friends as “El Profe,” a nickname for teacher, Patishtan was
already a community organizer before being imprisoned. Many contend that
it was for this crime — that of challenging the established power
structures — that he must face the rest of his days in prison, rather
than the official alleged crime of murdering seven police officers.
“This struggle started about 13 years ago,” Patishtan explained a few
weeks ago from the patio of his prison cell. He appeared surprisingly
optimistic for having just learned, only a few days earlier, that the
Chiapas state tribunal had decided to reject his arguments.
“This blow gives us more energy to re-double our attack,” he said. “I
have to continue the path I’m on. My mission is to fight for justice
and liberty of all who deserve it.” His legal defeat wasn’t the only bad
news; he’d recently learned that cancerous tumors had returned, despite
a previous operation.
Charges and contradictions
In 2000, Patishtan was accused of murdering seven policeman in an
ambush on July 12, 2000, near the town of El Bosque. One survivor of the
attacks identified him as the attacker, while another stated that the
attackers were hooded and therefore he couldn’t identify anyone’s faces.
From the day of Patishtan’s arrest until now, his case has been filled
with irregularities and contradictions.
According to multiple testimonies and official documents submitted
during the trial, Patishtan was attending a work meeting with other
rural teachers during the time of the ambush. But this alibi didn’t help
his case, and further evidence — such as the fact that one of the
witness testimonies was taken when medical records show the man to have
been unconscious — wasn’t accepted.
In fact, the procedural irregularities in Patishtan’s case began as
early as his arrest and detention, seven days after the homicides
occurred, although there was no warrant. After two years of trial
proceedings, the Tsotsil professor was sentenced to 60 years in prison
on March 18, 2002. He has appealed multiple times without success.
September’s legal challenge exhausted the last possibility of his
being declared innocent by Mexican courts. The only recourse in Mexico
would be to seek a presidential pardon, although Patishtan has said he
won’t ask for one because it wouldn’t clear his name. (His family,
however, has supported the option, and his son, Hector, has appealed to a
group of senators seeking to amend the criminal code to allow the
president to pardon those who have not had access to adequate legal
defense.)
His only other options would be to seek a declaration of amnesty,
appeal for a humanitarian release due to his brain tumor, or to appeal
to international courts such as the Inter-American Human Rights Court.
Chalk and a chalkboard
On September 24, celebrated as Prisoner’s Day in Mexico, Patishtan’s
supporters gave him a wood-framed piece of paper to symbolize their
belief in his innocence. “Bad governments cannot resolve these problems
of injustice,” his neighbors said upon passing the gift through the
prison bars “but the people can. We can do our jobs, and as we are
witnesses to his innocence, we [absolve him] by giving this recognition
of innocence.”
One of Patishtan’s colleagues, Martín Ramírez López, stated the
community’s version of the case even more clearly: “The only weapon
Alberto, the Tsotsil professor, held in his hands was a piece of chalk
and a chalkboard.” If Patishtan is in jail, Ramírez continued, “it is
for political revenge.”
Before being incarcerated, Patishtan belonged to the National
Coordinator of Education Workers and he led the Society of Social
Solidarity, through which he organized educational activities and
democratic community processes. He was also a leader in the town’s ejido organization. In Mexico, ejidos are communally owned agricultural lands, where each community member holds his or her own parcel.
The state of Chiapas is famous for being the birthplace and
stronghold of the Zapatista movement. In response, the government has,
for decades, waged low-intensity war to get rid of Zapatista insurgents
and intimidate the local population that acts as their base of support.
Usually this counter-insurgency consists of arrests, but sometimes the
government extends even further. In June of 1998, two years before the
ambush, there was a confrontation in El Bosque between Zapatista
supporters and a group of police that resulted in the deaths of eight
civilians and one policeman. An additional 53 people were detained —
some were also subjected to torture.
While not affiliated with the Zapatistas, Patishtan’s community
organizing often put him at odds with the region’s corrupt municipal
mayor, and he frequently denounced the injustices of the local
government. A month before the ambush, Patishtan organized a meeting
that brought together representatives from 12 neighborhoods, as well as
two ejido and communal commissaries, to publicly denounce the
local government’s lack of transparency, poor management of resources
and abuses of power. Their next action was to send a letter to the state
governor demanding that the local mayor be fired for abuse and
nepotism.
But the state governor didn’t fire the mayor. Instead, according to
Patishtan’s colleague Ramírez López, the official instructed federal
police to begin following community leaders. Two days later, the ambush
took place. Seven days after that, Patishtan was detained.
“People already knew that Patishtan was being watched,” said Ramírez
López. “They had him marked. They were just looking for a moment to
create a problem and fabricate charges against him.”
One of too many
Across the world, how many political prisoners are behind bars for a
crime that they did not commit? How many began organizing from inside
prison, convinced that this was the only way to get justice? How many
were freed? How many continue behind bars?
Patishtan is one of many political prisoners who have sparked
international movements for liberation. In the United States, now
University of California philosophy professor Angela Davis was
imprisoned and accused of murder and kidnapping for her affiliation with
the Black Panthers and the United States Communist Party. The campaign
for her freedom rocked the world, and the outcry led to her ultimate
release. Yet others aren’t as lucky. Oscar López Rivera, who recently
turned 70 behind bars, has been imprisoned for 32 years for fighting for
Puerto Rico’s independence, while celebrated journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal
has also spent more than three decades behind bar for his affiliation
with the Black Power movement.
And what about the imprisonment of those at Guantanamo Bay? In 2011,
government cables leaked by WikiLeaks revealed that the United States
was holding hundreds of people it knew to be innocent or not serious
threats. Many more of those at the infamous prison have been detained
under false accusations or those obtained under torture. And what about
the Palestinian political prisoners locked up in Israeli prisons for the
crime of nonviolent organizing and mobilizing in opposition to the
occupation?
Patishtan is only one of so many political prisoners incarcerated
around the world. And like so many of them, from a prison cell in
Chiapas, he continues to fight for his freedom.
Organizing from within
In 2006, Patishtan returned to organizing — this time from behind
bars. He and other political prisoners from Chiapas started the group La Voz Del Amate,
named after the prison in which they were held. That year he also
became an adherent of the Zapatista Sixth Declaration of Lacandon
Jungle.
On February 25, 2008, members of La Voz launched a hunger strike that lasted 41 days and won freedom for all the members of La Voz except for Patishtan. Instead, he was transferred to the maximum-security prison in the nearby town of Copainalá.
When Patishtan returned to the El Amate prison, he was the only member of La Voz remaining. He requested to be transferred to a prison in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, where he began the organization Solidarios con La Voz del Amate.
The group taught Spanish to indigenous prisoners in order to help them
advocate against abuse, both in prison and in courtrooms. One of his
pupils was 32-year-old Pedro López Jiménez who worked as a street vendor
in Tenejapa, Chiapas, before being imprisoned. Patishtan inspired López
to study international humanitarian law and work to promote human
rights in prison. When Patishtan’s glaucoma kept him from seeing and
writing, López became his secretary before being released recently.
“Alberto is my inspiration and my teacher, and I want to follow in his
steps and teach others,” he said.
That group of 12 Solidarios supported incarcerated people,
particularly those who were indigenous or whose due process rights had
been violated. In September 2011, he and members of the solidarity group
launched a month-long hunger strike to demand their freedom.
“You lose your fear of death because you know you are fighting for
justice,” Patishtan said. He explains that carrying out acts of
resistance that could cost one’s life requires both preparation inside
the prison as well as support groups on the outside. And it requires
internal preparation. “It should be love that moves you [to strike], and
not anger,” he explained.
Unlike the first hunger strike — which won members of the group their
freedom — this second strike was punished harshly. Three weeks into the
strike, Patishtan was forcibly transferred to a maximum-security prison
in the northwest state of Sinaloa, more than a thousand miles from
Chiapas.
Unrecognized justice
Patishtan is now back in a prison in his home state, where the
organizing for his freedom continues on both sides of the prison bars.
While nine of the Solidarios were freed this summer, Patishtan
remains with three fellow organizers. On the outside, his outspoken
denouncement of the judicial system has inspired many in Mexican civil
society, including his two children, 22-year-old Gaby and 17-year-old
Hector, to become activists and organize for his freedom and that of
other political prisoners.
He has a clear understanding of why he is not yet free. “Maybe it is
because of my color, or because I am indigenous. It’s probably because
I’m not a foreigner, or a white person, or someone who can speak many
languages. Nor do I have the economic power.”
Yet, despite the recent defeat, he is still optimistic. “Justice
exists,” he said. “You have to keep searching for it. Divine and human
justice exists — whether authority wants to recognize it or not.”
Meanwhile, across the world, groups continue to organize for his release. As the Movement for Justice in El Barrio
said in a statement after the protest at the Mexican consulate in New
York City, “Although we are geographically far away from our beloved
Mexico, the border will not stop us from continuing to fight for justice
and freedom for our brother. We are outraged. The whole world is
watching the progress of this case with concern.”
This article was translated from the original Spanish by Lela Singh.
http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/mexico-voice-freedom-imprisoned/
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