Cover image: Family members of the five prisoners from San Juan Cancuc protest in front of the Palace of Justice of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas. May 2023. Photo: Orsetta Bellani
Family members, human rights defenders and organizations, as well as the legal representatives of the five Tzeltal political prisoners from the municipality of San Juan Cancuc, in the highlands of Chiapas, announced that they have filed an appeal to annul the conviction that has maintained the five from Cancuc in prison for more than two years and four months.
Accused of the killing of a municipal policeman in 2022, the five Tzeltales, as well as organizations that are accompanying them, demand their immediate freedom because there is no evidence to maintain them in prison.
The Indigenous Tzeltales are Agustín Pérez Domínguez, Agustín Pérez Velasco, Juan Velasco Aguilar, Martín Pérez Domínguez and Manuel Sántiz Cruz. Although they were first sentenced to 25 years in prison, through an appeal, the courts in Chiapas reduced the sentence to 18 years. However, the demand from their legal team is their immediate freedom.
In a press conference on Thursday August 22, the lawyer Adrián Reyes explained that the appeal was presented at the federal level at the beginning of August—a legal resource contesting the convictions and demanding that the case be thrown out—to achieve the immediate freedom of the five Tzeltal political prisoners.
Reyes explained that the appeal is currently notifying the third parties, among them the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Chiapas, so that they can give their opinion on the legal resource presented on August 6.
Press conference announcing the filing of the appeal seeking immediate freedom for the five Tzeltal human rights defenders.
“It will be the federal level—in reference to the Collegiate Court of the Superior Tribunal of Justice—who must resolve and analyze each one of the arguments presented in the appeal. It will also have to review that the investigations and each one of the elements of the convictions, which in our opinion are not sufficient to demonstrate the responsibility of those detained,” explained the lawyer in a press conference held in San Cristóbal de las Casas.
Reyes emphasized that the punishment isn’t only imprisonment for the five Tzeltales, but also the hardships of their families in their struggle for justice, as well as the risk to the physical well-being of the prisoners, who in recent months have denounced a series of abuses inside CERSS No. 5, where they are imprisoned.
For the lawyer, the use of the federal appeal is justified because of the actions of judicial power in Chiapas. He points out that since the beginning of the case, the public prosecutor’s office assumed the guilt of the accused, for which an adequate investigation wasn’t carried out to truly demonstrate their participation in the crime, nor did it provide necessary elements to convict them.
According to Reyes, there is great mistrust in the state institutions because they are incorrectly convicting and “they have fabricated a series of crimes that far from leading to justice, violate those most in need.”
Criminalization of Human Rights Defenders
In the press conference were human rights defenders from the Parish of San Juan Cancuc, as well as Petrona Hernández Pérez, wife of Agustín Pérez Domínguez, who read a communique signed by the political prisoners where they highlighted that the crime for which they are accused has been fabricated by the Chiapas Indigenous Justice Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Press conference announcing the filing of the appeal seeking immediate freedom for the five Tzeltal human rights defenders.
“They fabricated crimes against them for defending the land,” said the human rights defenders. They also explained that among the different projects that threaten the Tzeltal communities in the Highlands of Chiapas is the highway project, Carretera de las Culturas, which has been promoted for a decade by the state government and currently seeks to connect the coast of Chiapas with the Maya Train in Palenque.
“That is why they were incarcerated. As defenders, they want to threaten us, imprison us. We are defenders of land and territory,” sustained the Tzeltal human rights defenders.
The Parish Priest of San Juan Cancuc, José Luis Vargas, who has accompanied the actions for freedom of the five political prisoners, assured that “the prisons are full of innocent people due to this corrupt system that we have in Mexico and that there is no justice.” He also indicated that they will keep up the struggle together with the families and organizations to free the Indigenous Tzeltales.
