URGENT ACTION: Help Gerardo Cabrera Gonzalez

[Daybelys]

Amnesty Stop Torture
FEAR OF TORTURE
Gerardo Cabrera Gonzalez
2001-07-23 Mexico


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Gerardo Cabrera González has been detained by the Mexican army. Amnesty International fears that he may be tortured or ill-treated.

On 14 July members of the 19th Infantry Battalion arrived in the community of Banco Nuevo, Petetlán municipality, Gerrero state. They arrested Gerardo Cabrera González and took him to Petetlán Barracks. He has reportedly been transferred to Acapulco civil prison and charged with illegal possession of arms.

Gerardo Cabrera González is a member of the Organización de Campesinos Ecologistas de la Sierra de Petetlán y Coyuca de Catalán (OCESP), Peasant Environmentalist Organization of the Mountains of Petetlán and Coyuca de Catalán, which campaigns to stop logging operations threatening forests in the state of Guerro.

Over recent years other members and supporters of the OCESP have been arbitrarily arrested and tortured or ill-treated. Some have received death threats and one has "disappeared".

In 1999 OCESP members Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera were arbitrarily detained by the military in Guerrero and forced under torture to confess to fabricated crimes, including the illegal possession of arms. Amnesty International believes they were targeted by the authorities purely because of their peaceful activities to prevent logging.

Amnesty International has adopted both men as prisoners of conscience and continues to call for their immediate and unconditional release. The judicial authorities have never effectively investigated the allegations of torture made by the two men, and the confessions extracted under torture continue to be accepted by the courts.

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please visit http://www.stoptorture.org/urgent/ and sign the petition and express your concern for Gerardo Cabrera Gonzalez