MEXICAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE APPEALS FOR PROTEST ACTIONS
Mexico City
[The Committee for the Defense of the Political Prisoners in Mexico issued the followi statement to the press November 30.
xk *
Yesterday, scarcely four months after a similar case, the press announced that the police had arrested a group of fourteen "terrorists." These included ten students, three workers end a lawyer.
The federal attorney general's office filed the following charges against them before the third district judge of the Federal District:
(1) The dynamiting and destruction of the statue of the former president of the republic, Miguel Aleman, at the University City in June, 1966.
(2) Damaging a truck belonging to the Mexican army by use of explosives on July 3 of this year at a place near La Union, Guerrero.
(3) Setting a bomb in the Bolivian embassy in Mexico City last October 13 which exploded while it was being examined at police headquarters, causing serious injuries to the bomb experts handling it.
(4) Various robberies of commercial and educational establishments.
(5) Damaging an automobile belonging to an agent of the public ministry of the delegation of Azcapotzalco through the use of an explosive device.
(6) "...numerous other assaults and robberies which will be the object of subsequent investigation."
In addition to all this, the political character of the new case of fourteen defendants is indicated in the faqllowing: "The activities of the fourteen persons...were designed to achieve certain aims against the [government] institutions through various organizations, among others those denominated the Partido Mexicano de Trabajadores [Mexican Workers Party] and the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria Estudiantil [Revolutionary Left Student Movement]."
The Committee for the Defense of the Political Prisoners in Mexico demands that the basis for these charges be genuinely examined. In view of the experience in the previous case of fourteen, arrested last July, it is to be feared that the "confessions," which the police claim the defendants made, were wrung from them through the worst torture.
The committee demands respect for the constitutional rights of all the victims of such methods and stresses the political nature of the new case.
The defendants are: the lawyer, Juan Ortega Arenas; the students, Mario Rechi Montiel, Luis Enrique Gerardo del Toro y Najera, Francisco Luna Leal, Enrique Condes Lara, Max Arturo Lopez Hernandez, Antonio Gershenson Tafelov (already kmown as a nuclear physicist), Fabio Erazo Barbosa Cano, Gerardo Pelaez Ramos, Salvador Lozano Garcia, and Gloria Yolanda Ortiz Sanchez; and the workers Alberto Reyna de la Cruz, Vicente Ortiz Cruz, and Justino Juarez "Martinez.
With these additions, the political prisoners in Lecumberri penitentiary now number fifty-six. There are eight political prisoners in the women's jail.
Outside the Federal District, where it is more difficult to determine the exact number, hundreds of political prisoners are suffering the interminable delays with which all cases of revolutionary political opponents of the regime are handled.
As in the case of the repressions that occurred last year (Adolfo Gilly, the Argentine journalist and his four comrades belonging to the Partido Obrero Revolucionario, and Victor Rico Galan, Rail Ugalde, Rolf Meiners, Isaias Rojas, Gilberto Balam and other members and leaders of the Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo [Revolutionary Movement of the People]) and the repressions last July (Adan Nieto, José Luis Calva Téllez, Daniel Camejo and others), international protests are important to help throw the light of publicity on the repressive course being followed by the Mexican government, which is so little known abroad.
The importance of such protests is all the greater in view of Mexico's reputation for being an "exception" in Latin America, of being a country where democratic rights are really respected and democracy rules.
Let them guarantee the new prisoners the right to a fair trial. Let the authorities release at once all those who have been imprisoned in retaliation for their political opposition to the regime.
In Europe, and especially in the United States, such actions can prove to be of considerable efficacy because of the repercussions they can have in Mexico.
The committee asks all groups, individuals and prominent figures to lodge protests with the executive and judicial authorities of Mexico in whatever form they deem most suitable.
Freedom for the political prisoners in Mexico!
Respect for the democratic rights provided for in the constitution!
Stop the repression!