In this clip, Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno shares with us words of hope upon recently being release from prison. He was imprisoned for over 16 months for being wrongfully accused for the murder of Bradley Will, Indymedia journalist, who was documenting...
Mexican Activists Turn Over Mexico City Man to Police in Sally Grace Eiler Murder Case
By Kristin Bricker
Last night Mexican police transferred Omar Yoguez Singu, 32, to the Oaxacan attorney general's custody for murdering 20-year-old Marcella "Sally" Grace Eiler. The AP reports that he claims he had consensual sex with Sally, then killed her with a machete during an argument.
Yoguez Singu was captured thanks to the quick action of Oaxacan activists who publicized her murder internationally.
Yoguez Singu raised his friends' suspicions when he returned to Mexico City from a recent trip to San Jose del Pacifico, were locals discovered Sally's decaying and mutilated body in a cabin. They noticed that he was injured and that his two dogs were missing, so they asked him what happened. Yoguez Singu reportedly told them that one of his dogs bit a child in the community, so locals tried to kill the dog with a machete. He allegedly told them that he was injured attempting to save the dog.
Thanks to the widely disseminated statement signed by Oaxacan organizations that Sally worked with, people in Yoguez Singu's circle of friends knew that a woman was murdered in San Jose del Pacifico while Yoguez Singu was there. They called activists in Oaxaca to confirm Yoguez Singu's story about his dogs.
Townspeople from San Jose del Pacifico denied Yoguez Singu's story. They said both of the dogs were still with them because Yoguez Singu had left without them. They also reportedly said he was the last person they saw with Sally before she disappeared.
When Yoguez Singu's friends confronted him about his lies, he reportedly confessed to them. His friends kept an eye on him while Oaxacan activists made the trip to Mexico City to obtain an arrest warrant.
When the arrest warrant was finalized, activists reportedly arranged to meet police in a supermarket to hand over Yoguez Singu. The AP reports that he was arrested on Wednesday, September 24.
Activists were quick to place Sally's murder in the context of rampant unchecked violence against women in Oaxaca. They note that aggressors are hardly ever punished for their crimes. "There is no justice in Oaxaca," said a spokesperson for the Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca - Ricardo Flores Magon (CIPO-RFM).
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Marcella "Sali" Grace Eiler
Marcella "Sali" Grace Eiler (September 30, 1987 – September 15, 2008) was an American social activist[1] from Eugene, Oregon who was murdered in Mexico two weeks before her 21st birthday. For the last three years of her life, she had been living and working intermittently in Oaxaca's provincial capital, 70-624 Oaxaca de Juárez, as a dance teacher and social activist, and acted as an observer for an indigenous rights organization.
Eiler's body was found on September 24, 2008 near the Oaxaca town of San José del Pacifico,where she had arrived to dance at a fundraiser. Newspapers reported that after Mexico City resident Omar Yoguez Singu was forced by friends to admit that he had killed Eiler with a machete, they beat him and oversaw his delivery into police custody. As of September 26, his case was being administered by Oaxaca's attorney general. Singu is alleged to have raped and murdered Eiler. While Singu confessed to the murder, MB2-633 he said he had had consensual sex with the victim
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