Communique from CODEDI Regarding the Situation of Indigenous Political Prisoner Fredy García Ramírez

Communique from the Indigenous organization, CODEDI, regarding the situation of political prisoner, Fredy García Ramírez, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

To the Social Organizations

To the Free and Mass Media

To the National and International Human Rights Organizations

To the People of Mexico and the World

As the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Rights (CODEDI), we want to share with the compañeros and compañeras that the spokesman for our political commission, Fredy García Ramírez, is the first political prisoner of the government of the Fourth Transformation in Oaxaca.

Fredy was detained on November 6, 2019. He was arbitrarily arrested, charged with assault, aggravated assault and robbery. He was placed in pretrial detention at the Tanivet prison in Tlacolula de Matamoros, Oaxaca. He was held incommunicado and isolated for thirty days. He was not allowed access to visits from human rights defenders who sought to verify his state of health.

As of today, April 27, 2020, we have tried by all means without success to communicate with our compañero. We want to denounce that by using the situation our country faces with the health crisis brought by Covid-19, the government seeks to justify flagrant violations of prisoners’ rights, holding our compañero Fredy incommunicado. We seek to communicate with compañero, Fredy García Ramírez, political prisoner of the capitalist system and the government of the state.

Through communication established with the director of the prison of Tanivet, our demands to communicate with Fredy have fallen on deaf ears. The response of the director has been both arrogant and authoritarian. Being one of the government functionaries who receives salary from our public tax dollars, he does not have the slightest intention of dialogue. We think that the director is a puppet of the governor, Alejandro Murat, who has demonstrated his ineptitude in governing this state, utilizing this moment of humanitarian health crisis to criminalize our struggles and justify the isolation of prisoners. It is clear, compañeros and compañeras, amidst this health crisis, there is more impunity, femicides, lack of health care and the diversion of resources. There is an ongoing war taking place, characterized by the plunder of our natural resources and the assassination of men and women by organized crime. The cartel of Murat is using the pandemic that attacks our state, country and world as a smokescreen, demonstrating his true interest in privileging plunder, repression and authoritarianism.

Amidst this situation, we will not remain silent. Political prisoners should be in their homes. The organized communities will defend our lives, land and territory, as our constitution stipulates.

We demand in this public letter the reestablishment of communication with Fredy García Ramírez, as well as an end to the violation of his legal due process and his human rights.

We will never be puppets, nor be dragged around by any capitalist, patriarchal system.

Never more a Mexico without us Indigenous people.

Fraternally.

CODEDI lives, the struggle continues.

Long live land and freedom!

We want respect for the autonomy of Indigenous peoples!

End the criminalization of the autonomous movement!

End the aggressions against social fighters!