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The political power generated by the popular social organization can represent a risk for the structures with particular interests that have been imposed before the ancestral community logics, which implies that organized people who seek a change of regime are persecuted and imprisoned for their contrary proposals. to the current government. This situation was and is experienced by indigenous people from the community of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, Oaxaca.
Francisco Durán Ortiz, Jaime Betanzos Fuentes, Herminio Monfil Avendaño, Fernando Gavito Martínez, Alfredo Bolaños Pacheco, Omar Hugo Morales Álvarez and Isaías Gallardo Álvarez are the names of seven political prisoners, indigenous Mazatecs, who have been held in prison for eight years of Tanivet, Cuicatlán and Villa de Etla, Oaxaca, without a sentence to this day. The facts for which they were apprehended are the alleged murders of Manuel Zepeda Lagunas and Gustavo Estrada, a fire and damage caused to private property, and the alleged attempts at femicide against Elisa Zepeda Lagunas and her mother, which occurred during an assembly to elect new community authorities on December 14, 2014 in the community of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón.
These events occurred in the context of a dispute over political exercise for rule from below
: between a partisan policy that only seeks enrichment from the public function and a policy that seeks to involve a community and promote a community form of government, appealing to the common interest.
Despite the fact that in the statements of Elisa Zepeda Lagunas and Manuel Zepeda Cortés the seven aforementioned indigenous people have been identified as responsible, among the 100 people involved and then imprisoned, the trial they have held has shown their innocence through the presentation of evidence and verification of the fabrication of the crimes they are charged with. Therefore, in the search for justice for them and them, influence peddling and the conflict of interests that have violated their right to due process and access to justice and prevented the ordering of their freedom are denounced.
Faced with these expressions of injustice and impunity, on July 4 the president of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), Arturo Zaldívar, signed an agreement with the government of Oaxaca so that the Federal Institute of Public Defender (IFDP) defend indigenous people in prison who have suffered violations of their right to due process. Although this agreement represents a possibility to achieve the release of the seven Mazatecs, who during their search for justice have been victims of human rights violations, they had not been able to access that resource due to the network of impunity that exists in Oaxaca. However, on August 5 they demonstrated before the SCJN and managed to have their petitions considered by this legal body.
Let us remember that the Political Constitution of the state of Oaxaca, in its article 11, establishes that every person has the right to have justice administered by the courts that are expedited to deliver within the terms and terms established by law, issuing their resolutions in a manner prompt, complete and impartial. Meanwhile, article 18 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States establishes that the prison system must be based on respect for human rights.
The situation faced by indigenous people is one of complete defenselessness, since the law enforcement institutions do not guarantee the right to an adequate defense, with the guarantee of a translation into the corresponding native language.
On the other hand, the exercise of preventive detention is carried out in a discretionary manner, giving rise to its imposition and, finally, the power relations of various actors that prevent certain people from accessing justice in accordance with what is established in the national and international laws. It is urgent, therefore, to attend to the demands for justice that their relatives have supported for eight years for the release of the seven Mazatec political prisoners from Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, whose human rights have been violated in their process and whose eight rights have been taken from them. years of community life and future. The authorities of the state of Oaxaca must not remain omitted in the face of this and other cases where the human rights of indigenous people are not respected, and through the agreement signed with the Supreme Court they must guarantee the correct review and an adequate defense to have access to the justice, reparation of damages and ensure the non-repetition of cases.
