Mexico City: Guards Attack Cimarrón Collective’s Autonomous Prison Library

This communique speaks to the recent attacks against imprisoned compañeros in the Reclusorio Norte, including the destruction of the autonomous library spearheaded by the Cimarrón Collective. The original in Spanish was published by Proyecto Ambulante and can be found here.

On July 5^th, 2018, the compañeros incarcerated in the Reclusorio Norte that make up part of the Cimarrón collective—a collective that has promoted the establishment of an alternative library in the prison—have informed us that this library was attacked by guards. This attack was ordered by the commander Hormigo (the sub-director of security) and Campos, who since this past Tuesday has forced the compañeros to cut their hair beneath threats of being sent to the Maximum-Security Module of the prison.

In the face of these threats, the compañeros agreed to cut their hair, but afterwards filed a complaint against the arrogant attitudes of the security personal. For this reason, the previously mentioned commanders called the compañeros to the governing area to continue with the threats. This time they said that if they did not withdraw their complaint, they would be taken to the Maximum-Security Module.

All of this followed violent revisions by the guards in the cells where the compañeros live, ending with the looting and destruction of the alternative library, Xosé Tarrio González, and the consignment of compañero Gerardo Ramírez Valenzuela to the Punishment Dormitory 1 beneath absurd pretexts. It is also necessary to mention that these attitudes of harassment have been taking place for months, since the authorities see this library space as a danger to their economic interests.

We denounce the attack on this cultural project where the prisoners are able to express themselves freely, and we question the double standards and hypocrisy of the prison authorities. While on one hand they attack spaces of cultural and artistic diffusion, criminalizing those that refuse to docilely submit to their politics of extermination and death, on the other hand, they permit and protect criminal enterprises, of which, the highest administrative functionaries of the prison form a part.

For all of this, we hold responsible the director of the prison, Enrique Serrano Flores, who is in charge of the auditorium Mónica Mandujano Rosillo, and the commanders Hormigo and Campos, for the damage caused to the library and the physical well-being of the compañeros of the collective: Luis Lázaro Urgell, Alejandro N. and Gerardo Ramírez Valenzuela. We also demand that Gerardo is returned from punishment to his normal living quarters.