Four Catalans arrested in Oaxaca City are found in jail

Mexican activist also arrested say police threatened them

August 7th, 2007 – Barucha Calamity Peller writes: The four Catalans who were taken off the street in Oaxaca City at 9:30pm on Sunday, August 5th, the night of the state legislative elections, by police in 5 different red and white ford lobo trucks without license plates, are said to have been sent to immigration authorities. Their physical and legal status is unknown.

A Mexican citizen, Damian Reséndiz Saucedo who was arrested with them and who is a member of an activist radio collective in Mexico City, gave the flowing testimony of his arrest:

“We were violently forced into the back of the trucks, under threats they invited us to meet ‘the real Oaxaca’….they never asked us for identification, they put us face down, and during the transfer to the clandestine jail where the police took us with our heads covered, the police insulted them for being Spanish and me for being from Mexico City.”

The five were supposedly detained for “having projected EZLN movies,” according to a communiqué released by Radio Ocupa and other groups. A documentary about the EZLN was projected in the Zocalo of Oaxaca City an hour before the arrests occurred. The comunique also says that the detained Catalanes, who are all women, are tourists.

As the PRI party of contested governor Ulises Ruiz were sweeping the elections, on a day some people call a day “of abstinence” from voting, wherein over 70% of the population did not vote, police presence in the city increased. It seems that the state perhaps felt empowered by the election results, and it is feared more arbitrary detentions will occur in the next week.

And although the initial reports said that over 70% abstained from voting, Televisa, a conservative Mexican television network, reported last night that only 65% abstained from voting. It is possible that the state government is also trying to downplay the low turnout.