Ninety-Three Years Ago Ricardo Flores Magon Died in a Jail Cell. The Same Continues Today:
To the persons, collectives and communities that struggle in Mexico and the world
To the libertarians of everywhere, encouraging them not to forget the memory of Ricardo Flores Magon, his example, his words, and the repression that he suffered like so many others
To the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, the National Indigenous Congress, and the Sixth in Mexico and the world
To all of the prisoners of Mexico and of the world
November 21st, the anniversary of the death of the Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magon in the jail cell of Leavenworth, Kansas United States, as friends families and those in solidarity with Miguel Angel Peralta Betanzos, the incarcerated comrade originally of the same community of Eloxochitlan de Flores Magon, Oaxaca, where Ricardo was born 142 years ago, we want to make the inhuman and asphyxiating changes that the rulers are currently pursuing in the prison system of Mexico known.
While the Mexican authorities every year intend to recuperate the memory of Ricardo Flores Magon with false tributes, we want to stress that like what was done almost 100 years ago to Ricardo, the rulers continue to use the jail today to suppress rebellion and resistance, attempting to kill through silence our incarcerated comrades, and to close all of the outlets where they can denounce the crimes and injustices in which we are living.
So we want to make it known that the root of the project of national security, under the pretext of the helped escape by the government of the Narco El Chapo Guzman, is further regulations in the different jails of Mexico that are already deplorable, where the majority of people are deprived of their liberty and their visitors. Although the authorities of the prisons justify the changes under the guise of the respect for human rights, inside the jails the situation is very different.
In august, in the annual reunion of the Conferencia Nacional de los Gobernadores (CONAGO), the Mexican government agreed to a program meant strengthen the penitentiary system, that is intended to be fully functioning before the end of the year. They did not explain the changing regulations to the prisoners; they will only be enforced by the order of the director, accompanied by the staff of the Dirección General de Readaptación Social. The only information that was given is that they will have to pass through a process of certification and that all of the prisons, from here on out, will be equal in the country. What is known more through conversation being had between corridors is that they will be presented a document explaining the rules under which they will be governed from here on out.
The Strengthening Program is grounded on five points that are intended to generate protocols to standardize the operation and infrastructure of the already existing prisons: Registro Nacional de Información Penitenciaria; Protocolos de Actuación, Métodos y Procedimientos Homologados; Desarrollo Profesional penitenciario; Modelo de Certificación; Programa Integral para la Reinserción Social. The points that direct this program like many others of previous years, are security and protection, order and discipline, dignified care, recreational programs and activities, justice and human rights, and administration and management. It has not been presented nor officially recognized, what the prisoners should know to be stipulation and what are only the orders of the director.
Similarly, in recent months, the prisoners have mentioned various changes in the prisons exclaiming: “we do not believe they are thinking of our well-being.” For example in the case of the prison in Cuicatlán, Oaxaca, visiting hours have been changed (which will be fewer hours), the intention is to make the visits shorter inside the prison, conjugal visits will now only be two hours, prisoners cannot receive visitors other than their direct family (father, mother, siblings); more and more restrictions have been placed on foodstuffs that can enter, while the food received is usually of very poor quality; privacy has been threatened as well, now even the curtain can be taken away that they previously had in the bath cell; the prisoners have all been made to wear uniforms; telephones have been removed leaving only one for each 200 prisoners; they are not allowing the entry of books, prisoners are not allowed to exercise by doing things like squats, bars, or board games; they cannot spend any money, and the visitors can’t bring in any money, not even a peso; they cannot wear belts, watches, earrings, bracelets; workspaces are being reduced; there is no place to receive visitors. These among other changes make up a long list that according to the representatives of the liberal prison system reflect decent treatment for the protection of liberty. Of course the visitors will also be directly affected by these changes, with the intention to tire the visiting family, so they despair and stop visiting their family members in prison. Anyone attempting to appeal, question or violate the new rules will have the threat of being punished or translated to another prison. The intention is to install a penitentiary system of force where privatization is the constant, and the prisoners are maintained in isolation from each other, almost all of the time.
Taking into account the present and historical conditions that exist in prisons, we insist on the importance of struggles against prisons, since the prison system is a pillar that sustains the dominant system, degrading the people, installing a dispositif of control and surveillance of bodies living in the enclosures and their families that accompany them in the confinement. Not only that, but now they are trying to further isolate each living individual in prisons and break at all costs any contact (interior and exterior), however minimal, with other individuals, who are going through the same experience and thus are capable of generating community, to be understood, to share, to transgress, collectively.
The 21st of November, we think that to remember the death of Ricardo Flores Magon is to remember also how and where he died: infamously, surrounded by fences, paralyzing the struggle, drowning the cry against injustice, assassinated by the state. For us, commemorating the death of Ricardo Flores Magon is also to recognize and struggle against the contemporary situation of confinement where nothing has changed. Today, the prisoners of Eloxochitlan de Flores Magon and of all the incarcerated of Mexico and the world, who continue living the same as the Magon brothers, Librado Rivera, and their imprisoned brothers!
Liberty to the 12 prisoners of the community assembly of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magon!
Liberty to Roque Coca, Luis Fernando Sotelo, Fernando Bárcenas, Cemei Verdía of Ostula, to the prisoners of Tlanixco, Alvaro Sebastián, prisonders of Bachajón
Liberty to Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal
Prisoners to the Street! Solidarity!
Signed:
Families, friends and comrades of Miguel Angel Peralta, incarcerated in Cuicatlán, Oaxaca
Poorly translated from the original here: http://www.abajolosmuros.org/index.php/noticias-anticarcelarias/448-hace-93-anos-ricardo-flores-magon-murio-en-una-carcel-hoy-sigue-lo-mismo
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