Sign the Petition: Justice for Azqueltan and respect of the rights of tepecanos and wixáritari
Urgent Action, September 5, 2021
C. Enrique Alfaro Ramírez, Constitutional Governor of the State of Jalisco.
C. Gerardo Octavio Solís Gómez, Attorney General of the State of Jalisco.
Jorge Alejandro Gongora Montejano, Special Prosecutor for Human Rights.
Javier Serratos López. Prosecutor of the Litigation Area, Colotlán, Jalisco.
Daniel Espinoza Licón, President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the State of Jalisco.
Oversight Judges in Colotlán, Jalisco.
The undersigned address you, because we are concerned about the criminalization of the authorities of the Tepehuana and Wixárika indigenous communities of San Lorenzo Azqueltán, municipality of Villa Guerrero, Jalisco, for exercising their right to social protest. We are referring particularly to the investigation file #158/2021-J initiated by the Public Ministry of Villa Guerrero and included in criminal case # 63/2021 of the Oversight Court of the Municipality of Colotlán, Jalisco, against Esmeralda Bañuelos Pérez, treasurer of the autonomous Communal Property Commission. The hearing where the charges were formulated was held on September 7, 2021.
The events go back to a peaceful demonstration on May 12, 2021, when a person named Paola Reyes Rojas approached the community mobilization, insulting and provoking community members who were heading back to the communal house. This resulted in physical attacks on Esmeralda, who responded to the verbal and physical attacks by this person. The incident ended when Paola’s partner grabbed her by the neck and took her away from the scene. The investigation file was opened in response to this event; yet, it does not adhere to reality and lacks the legal basis for charging the community member.
This legal action taken against community authorities is in addition to the taking into custody of a community member from Azqueltán. This person was deprived of his liberty without grounds, for actions taken in the context of provocations made against community members, after they suffered numerous violations to their human rights. On the other hand, perpetrators who attacked communal authorities on November 3, 2019, threatening their lives, have been protected from prosecution, such as Mr. Fabio Flores Sánchez, accused of appropriating communal lands and who currently enjoys impunity from justice.
It is alarming that this situation occurred in the midst of a peaceful demonstration that was demanding justice and an end to impunity, and in the context of numerous denunciations of attempted homicide, torture, death threats and land grabbing. The municipal police itself took the aggressor to present her complaint to the Public Ministry. The latter consigned the case to the Colotlán Oversight Judge, skipping protocol, without any hearing or conciliatory measures.
The criminalization of the community member Esmeralda Bañuelos Pérez amounts to a serious message of impunity and to a violation of the individual and collective human rights of an indigenous people, for which the undersigned demand the following:
1. That the right to social protest and to the defense of the territory be guaranteed to the treasurer of the San Lorenzo de Azqueltán Commission of Communal Property, Esmeralda Bañuelos Pérez.
2. That full respect for the human rights and the presumption of innocence of the community member Esmeralda Bañuelos Pérez be guaranteed, and that the public prosecutor’s office carry out its work within the framework of the criminal justice system, seeking to establish the truth of the facts and not the criminalization of a defender.
3. The end to the repression and criminalization of the indigenous community of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán’s defense of the territory, in the Municipality of Villa Guerrero, Jalisco.
With the assurance of your prompt response, I remain attentive to your actions to meet these urgent requests.
See the history of criminalization of the Azqueltán community (in Spanish)
Sign the petition here (at the end of the page in Spanish).