Dear comrade, friend, or collective:  

We send you our warm greetings and thanks for your solidarity, which has helped Victor and all of us grow stronger day by day.   

We ask you to read the attached letter, and if you agree with it, sign it and send it back to us as soon as possible to this e-mail address: libertadavictor@gmail.com .  

We ask that those of you who are our comrades and friends in other countries also send the letter to Mexican embassies, consulates or other representative institutions in your respective countries. 

We believe this signature campaign will provide much needed support for the work our movement lawyers are now doing to win Victor’s release. Victor is scheduled to testify this coming November 30. 

We’re sending you a big hug,  

Committee to Free Victor       
 
 

Lic. Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa

Presidente de la República Mexicana

Lic. Fernando Francisco Gómez-Mont Urueta

Secretario de Gobernación,

Rosario Ibarra de la Garza

Coordinadora de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la Cámara de Senadores

Prof. Rubén Ignacio Moreira Valdez

Presidente de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la Cámara de Diputados

Dr. Raúl Plascencia Villanueva

Presidente de la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos

Lic. Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon

Jefe de Gobierno del D.F.

Miguel Mancera Espinosa

Procurador General de Justicia del D.F.

Dr. Luis Armando González Placencia

Presidente de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos del D.F.

Lic.  Celia Marín Sasaki

Juez del Juzgado 30 

We, the undersigned are members of the Support Committee to Free Víctor Herrera Govea,  family members, comrades and friends, libertarian anarchists, collectives that are both adherents and non-adherents to the Other Campaign, students at the UNAM, UAM, IPN, National School of Music, colleges and high schools, teachers and researchers, residents of Mexico City and other states or countries, and people in solidarity who, having heard what happened on October 2, 2009 at the 41st commemorative march of the massacre at Tlatelolco, hereby express our outrage over      the events detailed below: 

1.      During the march, a group of infiltrators damaged and robbed the OXXO convenience store located at the corner of Eje Central and República de Cuba. In a number of videos taken at different points in the march, these individuals can be seen provoking confrontations with the police. It’s strange to see how freely they move along in different contingents without being arrested a single time, strongly suggesting that they have police protection.

2.       Furthermore, during the march, riot police formed a double cordon around the anarchist, libertarian contingent, with the purpose of isolating it and impeding its arrival at the Zócalo, beating and making arbitrary arrests of the “encapsulated” people. For the second consecutive year, this situation reveals the government’s purposeful repression and criminalization of social protest, with an emphasis on the anarchist struggle, which gave rise to last year’s human rights demands specifying illegal arrests of people in this same group. This leads us to believe that another provocation was prepared against this same group of young people, resulting in 26 arrests. Most of them were minors who were later released, but four people are still in jail and proceedings have started against them. None of the accused participated in the robbery or in damaging the store; they don’t appear in any of the videos. Their names are Joaquín López Ochoa, Miguel Ángel Martínez, Jaime Cortés Fones, and Víctor Herrera Govea. Victor is a philosophy student, anarchist, adherent to the Other Campaign, and a person with a commitment to the social struggles in the country and to winning freedom for political prisoners. Prior to the march, he participated in the camp outside the Molino de Flores Prison in support of 12 people unjustly held prisoner since 2006. He also participated in an urban agriculture project in Xochimilco.

3.      During the police encirclement near the Fine Arts Palace on Eje Central, Víctor Herrera Govea was brutally beaten by the riot police. The fact that this was filmed by members of the contingent functioned as pressure on the police to release him at that time. Two hours later, however, he was illegally arrested with extreme violence by eight plainclothes judicial police. This makes it clear that Victor was doubly tortured, once during the encirclement and during his arrest. It also shows that he is innocent and that the operation was planned to repress and frame young anarchists, and discredit the march. All of this was done with the complicity of the scandal sheets (La Prensa, El Metro, Ovaciones) and the major TV stations (Televisa, TV Azteca, Canal 40), all of which cast scorn on the social movements that struggle for a more just world, first by manipulating the facts and then by making them invisible to the public.

4.      For these reasons we demand:

a)     That, in keeping with international treaties signed and ratified by Mexico and a human rights situation now experienced in Mexico that has prompted our deepest anger and outrage, a fair, thoroughgoing investigation be immediately opened to identify the causes of the facts described above and to delineate the responsibility of the Mexico City government;

b)     That Víctor Herrera Govea be immediately released due to the lack of evidence against him;

c)      That his physical and psychological integrity be guaranteed;

d)     That his judicial security be guaranteed, instead of continuing to arbitrarily enforce a rule of law that fosters the criminalization of the social protest.

e)      That, based on Article 8 of the Constitution of Mexico and in accord with the necessary faculties and jurisdiction for doing so, action be taken to investigate the previously described events and that we be informed of the actions the government decides to take to resolve the situation; likewise, we ask that the results of this investigation be made public and that those responsible for the events be brought to justice.

f)       That the National Human Rights Commission, CNDH, take action with regards to the serious human rights violations committed against Víctor Herrera Govea, given that these go beyond the sphere of the Mexico City government and are of national and international importance, and that the Commission recommend  measures for his protection. 

For all of the above reasons, we reiterate our demand and urge you to comply with the provisions established in the Mexican Constitution and international agreements signed by the Mexican government having to do with human rights and the application of justice, and to bring an end to repression and the criminalization of social protest.