two years on, atenco still hurts

via the narcosphere

Of the 47 women arrested during the police riot in Atenco, twenty-six report being mentally, physically, or sexually tortured during their detention. To date, no police officer has been convicted of torture or sexual abuse.

One woman, María Paticia Romero Hernádez, remains imprisoned for her participation in Atenco. She reports being threatened by prison officials. Prison officials recently moved a prisoner who’s been harassing her into her cell. The deputy director of the prison also recently accused her of leading a prisoners’ movement against prison authorities. For this reason he says he is going to plant evidence on her “to aggravate her legal situation.”

This past week activists mobilized in Mexico City to commemorate and protest two years of impunity, repression, and unjust imprisonment.

On April 29, female ex-prisoners of Atenco protested outside the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Related to Violence Against Women to announce their petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)regarding the sexual torture they suffered while detained. The IACHR is considered an option of last resort, when citizens are unable to obtain justice through their own countries’ legal systems.

The women and their supporters protested outside the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Related to Violence Against Women to make clear that they were forced to seek justice in an international body because of the Special Prosecutor’s failure to act on their cases. Sufficient evidence exists to indict the police who tortured them, but the state has failed to do so.