To the national and international Sixth
To the signatories to the Declaration for Life
To the honest media
To those who struggle for truth and justice
From the Network of Resistances and Rebellions Ajmaq we make this pronouncement.
We know that prisons are just another business of capitalism and that Mexican “justice” is characterized by impunity and the violation of human rights, and that it is only at the service of those who can buy it, but not for those who are poor and indigenous, for those who struggle and build alternatives for life are criminalized and their crimes are fabricated. Such is the case of José Díaz Gómez, support base of the EZLN, who has been unjustly imprisoned for 9 months, in the State Center for Social Reinsertion of Sentenced Persons No. 17 “El Bambú,” in the State Center for Social Reinsertion of Sentenced Persons No. 17 “El Bambú” in Catazajá, Chiapas. He is accused of violent robbery, as are four other BAEZLN who have arrest warrants.
José Díaz is an indigenous Ch’ol and campesino, 45 years old, originally from the ranchería “El Trapiche,” in the autonomous Zapatista municipality of Francisco Villa, Caracol V, Roberto Barrios (official municipality of Salto de Agua). He was arbitrarily detained with excessive use of force, tortured, disappeared and held incommunicado by members of the specialized police assigned to the Selva District Prosecutor’s Office. In the prosecutor’s office he was forced to put his fingerprint and sign several blank papers, and he was neither assisted by a translator of his native language, nor by a lawyer.
All these violations of José’s dignity and of the legal procedures themselves are evidence of the fabrication of crime and criminalization. The real reason for José’s imprisonment is the interest in the individual use of the land that they want to impose upon the collective use and care of Mother Earth, but which has its roots in the dispossession of lands from the EZLN provoked by the bad government with its wholesale war of attrition designed for decades by the different administrations.
We have made visits to comrade José Díaz Gómez, and it hurts us to see his pain but it also fills our hearts with his love and dignity for life and freedom. Like the other imprisoned Zapatista comrade Manuel Gómez Vázquez, we see that in these cruel places the violence generates greater psychosocioemotional and economic wear and tear for them and their families. Even so, both maintain a light in the midst of so much darkness.
We demand the immediate and unconditional release of José Díaz and Manuel Gómez Vázquez because we know their innocence, and are aware of the fabrication of a crime against them by the Prosecutor’s Office. We do not trust in the justice of the bad government because they are the ones who imprison innocent people with legalistic trickery, that is why we call to fight politically for the freedom of political prisoners, to disseminate information through all the channels available to us regarding the injustices that these BAEZLN comrades are going through, and to show solidarity with them and their families. As well as to demand the cancellation of the arrest warrants against four more compañeros.
We invite designers, visual artists and people of good heart to make graphic materials for the freedom of José Díaz Gómez, so that they can be spread through social-digital networks, streets and squares. These graphic materials will be received in digital format from August 24, 2023 to the mail ajmaq_chiapas@riseup.net
Freedom for José Díaz and Manuel Gómez Vázquez!
Stop the criminalization of those who struggle!
Down with the prison walls!
Original declaration published on August 26th, 2023.
English translation by Schools for Chiapas.