Families of indigenous Chiapas prisoners on a hunger strike. Photo: Angeles Mariscal
The Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba Center) made an urgent call to the authorities of the Chiapas government to immediately provide adequate medical attention to the prisoners on a hunger strike, in the Center of Social Reinsertion for the Sentenced (CERSS) No. 5 in San Cristóbal de las Casa and on a fast in CERSS No. 10 in Comitán.
After 132 days without food intake, with a 30-day period of partial fasting, Adrián Gómez Jiménez, Juan de la Cruz Ruíz, Abraham López Montejo and Germán López Montejo, present grave medical complications and their lives are at risk due to the ineffective attention of the Executive and Judicial Powers of the Chiapas government.
According to the Report of Medical Observations for the Prisoners on a Hunger Strike that it carried out on July 18, 2019, the organization Doctors of the World Switzerland mentioned: “different government agencies have not fulfilled procedures and norms of medical attention in a prison context.”
Among the omissions are: a lack of complete and exhaustive clinical evaluations since the start of the hunger strike and of weekly clinical examinations, as well as defects in the measuring instruments (like scales).
The Frayba Center detailed that the recurring illnesses that the hunger strike prisoners have suffered are diarrhea with blood, urinary track infections, elevated triglyceride levels and liver problems, as well as tachycardia and anxiety.
Given this situation the families of the hunger strike prisoners, the Work Group “We Ate Not Everyone” and the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center, reminded the Mexican State of its responsibility to guaranty the life, security and integrity of people in their custody, according to what international treaties and conventions establish, like the United Nations Joint Principles for the protection of all people subjected to any form of detention or prison.
The families and organizations demanded immediately resolving the request for the freedom of the prisoners on a hunger strike and those fasting, who have vindicated their innocence, since while in detention their statement was obtained under torture to incriminate themselves for a crime they didn’t commit, followed by a trial with grave violations of due process.
Finally, they asked to continue the investigations of the denunciations of 13 cases of torture that appear in the Registry of Attention folder in an impartial and effective way, which were initiated by the Office of the Prosecutor Against Torture of the state of Chiapas.
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Originally Published in Spanish by Chiapas Paralelo
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas Support Committee 