San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas
July 6 2023
Bulletin No. 16
- Eight months arbitrarily deprived of his liberty, with no guarantee of an adequate defense and fair trial by the Judicial Power of the State of Chiapas.
- Four BAEZLN at imminent risk of being arbitrarily detained.
The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) demands the immediate release of José Díaz Gómez (José Díaz), support base of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (BAEZLN), who has been arbitrarily deprived of his liberty for eight months in the State Center for Social Rehabilitation of Sentenced Prisoners No. 17 “El Bambú,” in Catazajá, Chiapas.
José Díaz, an indigenous Cho’l, originally from the Ranchería “El Trapiche,” located in the official municipality of Salto de Agua, belonging to the autonomous municipality of Francisco Villa, Junta de Buen Gobierno “Que habla para todos,” Caracol V, Roberto Barrios, is a campesino who was arbitrarily detained with signs of excessive use of force, torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, forcibly disappeared and held incommunicado by agents of the specialized police assigned to the Selva District Prosecutor’s Office who carried out the arrest warrant.
The Judicial Power of the State of Chiapas has violated the guarantee of due process, accused of the crime of robbery executed with violence. In addition, there are arrest warrants for the same crime against four other BAEZLN, which put them at imminent risk to their dignity and human right to freedom, as a form of intimidation and harassment of Zapatista autonomy.
Frayba documented that on November 25, 20221, José Díaz was detained at approximately 4:00 p.m. in the municipality of Salto de Agua, Chiapas. In the company of a family member, he was intercepted by a black van with police on board, they showed him a supposed arrest warrant, they put him in the back of the van, handcuffed, blindfolded, beaten in various parts of his body, and he was stripped of 1,400 pesos, wallet and his ID card.
He was taken to the Prosecutor’s Office in the municipality of Palenque, Chiapas, where he was forced to put his fingerprint and sign several blank papers, he says that at no time was he assisted by a translator of his native language, much less by a lawyer. He was held there on November 25 and 26. On November 27 he was given a hearing to begin his judicial process, that day they changed his clothes, and there he learned that he was accused of an alleged aggravated robbery for the amount of 22,000 pesos in September 2022.
Frayba evidenced the legal circumstances, where there is a contradiction of mode, time and place in relation to the detention executed by the police assigned to the Selva District Prosecutor’s Office; in the investigation file it is stated that the detention of José Díaz was on November 27 at 21:05 hours in the municipality of Palenque, showing the contradictions about his real detention, violating his human rights, under an illegal and arbitrary detention and with actions of torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, forced disappearance and incommunicado detention.
On the other hand, the Selva District Prosecutor’s Office requested an arrest warrant with deficient evidence and without adherence to the principles of efficiency, professionalism and objectivity, in which no further evidence was found to assume direct criminal responsibility.
José Díaz is currently awaiting his intermediate stage hearing, since the Prosecutor’s Office requested time limits for the complementary investigation since December 2022, however, the procedural delay, criminalization and collusion of the authorities means that he is at risk of continuing to be illegally deprived of his freedom for more than a year.
We demand that the Prosecutor General’s Office dismiss the criminal action perpetrated against José Díaz Cho’l for the purpose of unjustly criminalizing him and keeping him imprisoned.
We call on individuals, collectives, national and international organizations to show solidarity and demand that the Attorney General’s Office and the State Judiciary immediately release our comrade José Díaz Gómez BAEZLN.
Original text: https://www.frayba.org.mx/boletin_16_jose_diaz_BAEZLN
English translation by Schools for Chiapas.
Footnotes
- (about the detention there is a document sent by the autonomous rural judge of Francisco Villa) quoted verbatim: “José Díaz is BAEZLN, age 44 years old living in Trapiche municipality of Salto de Agua, Chiapas arrested on Friday, November 25 at 5 pm we do not know why he was detained that is urgent search.”