Action for the Freedom of Luis Fernando Sotelo

To the Zapatista Army of National Liberation

To the National Indigenous Congress

To the National and International Sixth

To the Network Against Repression and for Solidarity

To the Compañeros in Solidarity

On November 5th our compañero Luis Fernando Sotelo Zambrano marked three years of being kidnapped by the state. In 2014, his case was fabricated. While activities were carried out in the context of the third global day of action for Ayotzinapa, as well as diverse solidarity actions for political prisoners in university city, our compañero was detained by the Mexico City police as part of the politics of criminalization of social protest of Miguel Angel Mancera.

Like that, Luis Fernando Sotelo was submitted to a judicial process plagued with irregularities and flagrant violations of human rights. And in spite of the legal defense of Luis Fernando demonstrating that there didn’t exist any evidence against him, he was sentenced by Judge 32 of Mexico City to 33 years and five months in prison. This sentence was firstly illegal, but furthermore was completely disproportionate. The defense of our compañero appealed this sentence and obtained a resolution, only lessening the sentence to 13 years and 15 days of prison. The lawyers entered a direct appeal against the last resolution, an appeal that is now in revision by the second appellate court.

On July 3rd we organized a rally outside of the court, sending in a commission lead by the mother of Luis Fernando to speak with the presiding judge. He said to us that we shouldn’t be worried and that we can be confident that a resolution would happen quickly and that there would be justice. But how can we call this justice when it is delayed? How can we wait sitting down while each day that passes is a day of freedom taken from our compañero while behind these walls sitting in comfortable mahogany desks they continue discussing a matter that has been in their hands for months? Our compañero continues confined. How can the courts protect human rights when they treat us like an enemy?

We want to make it clear that the judicial processes are scenes of inequality, where not even the institutions of the state are capable of respecting their own rules that they themselves created. More than once the legal defense of our compañero has demonstrated that there exists no evidence against our compañero. On the contrary there exists evidence that this, like many other cases against young people that organize in Mexico City, is a case fabricated by the state as an example against social movements. An attempt to teach us a lesson and paralyze us. Today we come here to forcefully say that we will not be stopped, that we will not rest until our compañero is free. We know that with prison, they search to break the morale of Luis Fernando as well as ours. But today we come to demonstrate that Luis is not alone, that solidarity makes us big and strong, that we will not remain passive waiting for their supposed justice, because on our side is the force of reason, and we have solidarity as a weapon.