Report on today's demonstration at Mexican Embassy in London: Freedom and Justice for Atenco!
29.06.2010 20:23
Demonstrators calling for freedom for the Atenco prisoners in Mexico protested for over 3 and a half hours in front of the Mexican Embassy in London today 29th June. The protest was part of an International Day of Action, coinciding with the Supreme Court of Justice of the Mexican Nation meeting to decide the future of 12 political prisoners from the small town of San Salvador Atenco near Mexico City.
Protestors defied police to take up position directly in front of the Embassy entrance, refusing police orders to move to the opposite side of the road. After around 20 minutes the possibility of arrest under the Public Order Act forced the dozen or so demonstrators to move a few yards back to a traffic island in the middle of the road.
Nevertheless leafleting continued right in front of the Embassy while Mexican revolutionary songs blasted out a message of defiance. Certainly the Embassy authorities were well aware of the protest as their Security officers were filming and photographing demonstrators.
"The Atenco prisoners have been imprisoned for the crime of standing up for the poor peasant farmers of the area," said Esther McDonald of the UK Zapatista Solidarity Network, who organised the protest. "It was therepresentatives of the state who committed violent atrocities at Atenco: Amnesty International has detailed shocking systematic sexual assaults and rapes by the police on 26 women during and after the police assault on Atenco in May 2006."
The events of 3rd /4th May 2006 were sparked off when police tried to arrest peasant farmers selling flowers in the street. When locals went to the flower-sellers aid and drove off the police, a massive state force gathered and then invaded Atenco. Police killed two youths, Alexis Benhumea and Francisco Javier Cortes, and arrested over 200 people. Dozens of homes were invaded without warrants, and hundreds of people were tear-gassed and beaten. Police subjected 26 women to serious sexual assaults, including rape, in attacks described by Amnesty International as "torture".
Original article on IMC Scotland:
http://www.indymediascotland.org/node/20034
