Activists announced that 500 people were arrested this weekend during Operation Pescador, which the Oaxaca government carried out near the capital’s central water supply center. State and federal security forces participated in the operation.
The police action began on Friday and concluded yesterday. Human rights defenders considered it a discriminatory and violative act, as those detained had not committed any crime or had no arrest warrant, and the officers based their arrest solely on their appearance.
One thousand members of the State Attorney General’s Office, state, auxiliary, banking, industrial, and commercial police, as well as the National Guard, among other forces, participated in the operation. They entered the central water supply center to indiscriminately arrest people, without warning, including those under the influence of alcohol.
The detainees were loaded into patrol cars and taken to the Oaxaca State Attorney General’s Office area known as Los Pinos, a place where there is no shelter from the heat.
According to the prosecutor’s office, “premises where drug sales are carried out were seized; pickpockets were arrested, as well as residents engaged in theft” and extortionists using the “drop by drop” scheme; spaces where stolen goods were sold were recovered, as were others where unauthorized video surveillance cameras were installed; in addition, “establishments selling package delivery services and pawn shops” were searched, and “clandestine bars and taverns” were closed.
During the operation, only 13 people were brought before the Public Ministry “for smuggling, fraud, drug trafficking, and various other crimes.”
Isaac Torres Carmona, coordinator of the Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights in Oaxaca, pointed out that the authorities made arrests without justified legal cause, violated the country’s constitutional regime on detention, unjustifiably detained the detainees, incommunicado detention, and deprived them of their rights to liberty and freedom of movement. They violated their integrity and dignity. Therefore, those arrested must be released immediately.
Likewise, Filadelfo Aldaz Desiderio, social activist and founder and coordinator of the “Nkä’äymyujkëmë” community kitchen, pointed out that these actions by the government of Morena governor Salomón Jara Cruz are “racist, classist, and criminalizing… these operations are a racial and ethnic cleansing against people who are already vulnerable and vulnerable within this colonial/racist and fascist system.”
She denounced the Pescador operation’s sole mission, which is to adapt Oaxaca with a business-like vision, whose objective is to improve the situation for the “enjoyment” of tourists visiting the city.
Even during the operations, merchants and pedestrians complained that the uniformed officers did not act against pickpockets or those engaged in drug dealing, and only targeted “drunks” or homeless people.
The human rights defender, Yesica Sánchez Maya of the Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and Equity, considered that this operation, in addition to violating human rights, is merely a plan to distract attention from priority issues such as addressing insecurity in neighborhoods, femicide, or something as basic as the supply of drinking water.
He also indicated that, based on these events, the Ombudsman for Human Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca should have taken a stand and initiated an official investigation, as we are facing acts of discrimination, racism, and ethnophobia.
Source: jornada
