This Thursday, April 16th, starting at noon, the hearing for Antonia Hernández López, Jerónimo Moreno Hernández, and Victorio Hernández Moreno, members of the National Indigenous Council (CNI) in Chiapas, will take place. Given the risk of their arrest on fabricated charges of aggravated land dispossession, the CNI has called for publicizing the case and carrying out simultaneous solidarity actions on April 14th, 15th, and 16th, 2026.
In a statement, the Council asked for messages to be posted on social media about the hearing on April 16th, demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Francisco Moreno Hernández and María de Jesús Sánchez Gómez, imprisoned since February 12th, due to a land dispute; the dismissal of criminal case 41/2025; the immediate cancellation of eight arrest warrants; and the restitution of land and housing to the eight displaced families.
They also demanded punishment for those responsible for the violent eviction and torture: the State Guard, the Indigenous Prosecutor’s Office, the Agrarian Court, and the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI); priority medical attention and protection for children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with disabilities; and an end to the dispossession of recovered lands and the criminalization of those who defend land and territory.
The organization, headed by the Bishop Emeritus of Saltillo, Coahuila, Raúl Vera López, denounced that residents of the Jotolá ejido, in the municipality of Chilón, supported by agents of the State Guard, the municipal police, officials from the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), and the Unitary Agrarian Court, violently attacked eight Tseltal families (30 people), members of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), on February 12th, causing their forced displacement. Among them were 17 children, a pregnant woman, two elderly people, and two minors with disabilities.
It added that five houses were destroyed, belongings stolen and burned, domestic animals killed, and at least three people subjected to torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Francisco Moreno Hernández and María de Jesús Sánchez were arrested, and that Sánchez was tortured during transport by an agent of the Indigenous Prosecutor’s Office and threatened with disappearance.
Original article by Educa Oaxaca, April 13th, 2026.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.