Responding to Arrest in Chiapas, Mexicans Denounce Rise in Acts of Intimidation

SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, CHIAPAS: The arrest of Dámaso Villanueva, one of the Other Campaign’s promoters in this city, has been considered by representatives of social and human rights organizations to be part of a strategy of intimidation and political repression unleashed throughout the entire country against those who support the Zapatista initiative.

Members of a half-dozen such organizations denounced that the imprisonment of Dámasco Villanueva and the arrest warrant issued recently for Mario Alvarez of the Unitary Workers’ Federation (Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, or CUT, in Spanish) – both men from the state of Chiapas – are not isolated incidents but rather part of a campaign of intimidation and persecution that seeks to inhibit citizen participation in the Other Campaign.

During a press conference held in the facilities of the Center for Indigenous Integration and Development (CIDESI), a young man who identified himself as Claudio, and who had been with Villanueva when he was detained, reported that around 10:30 in the morning on Friday, February 24, three men dressed in municipal police uniforms told him that they had a warrant for his arrest.

Without letting him read the warrant, the police handcuffed him and, despite the fact that Villanueva did not resist, pushed him into a vehicle.

An information booth about the Zapatista movement has been set up in San Cristóbal’s central plaza since 1995. For several years, Dámasco Villanueva has participated actively in this work to disseminate information.

After his arrest this morning, several of his compañeros from the Other Campaign headed to the Palace of Justice to investigate his whereabouts. In the office of the Second Penal Court, officials denied them access to Villanueva’s file, claiming they could find it at the Center for Social Re-Adaptation.

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