But the kicker is this: Most of the women, all poor campesinas, appear to simply have had miscarriages, having suffered beatings - several of them had been raped - and were moreover coerced to confess to their "crime" by state prosecutors.
Yet rather than apologize for this travesty of justice, the state government, headed by Governor Juan Manuel Oliva, stubbornly and stupidly refuses to admit it did a mistake and that the women were innocent. Given the fighting spirit of these women and their clamor to have their name cleared, the matter will now most likely move to the courts, ensuring more bad publicity for Juan Manuel Oliva, who tried to please the women with promises of housing assistance, and offered state vehicles to transport them, which they rejected.
Yet rather than apologize for this travesty of justice, the state government, headed by Governor Juan Manuel Oliva, stubbornly and stupidly refuses to admit it did a mistake and that the women were innocent. Given the fighting spirit of these women and their clamor to have their name cleared, the matter will now most likely move to the courts, ensuring more bad publicity for Juan Manuel Oliva, who tried to please the women with promises of housing assistance, and offered state vehicles to transport them, which they rejected.
Yolanda Martínez Montoya, in prison for more than six years, gets the final word:
"I want nothing. I want to be me. I don't want to be tied to anyone who has something to do with the government, because they caused me so much harm. I want nothing from them"
Reporter: "Was the government's offer in exchange for keeping silent?"
"It could be. One may deduce using logic."
A couple of points should not escape notice:
ReplyDelete1. These women were released largely thanks to the legal and publicity efforts of Guanajuato's Centro Las Libres and its director, Verónica Cruz Sánchez. In 2006, Cruz Sánchez was named Human Rights Defender of the Year by Human Rights Watch.
2. The embarrassed Guanajuato state government, desperate to bring an end to the international media storm generated by Las Libres, chose an astoundingly stupid solution. Rather than free the women on the grounds that they had already served the maximum three-year sentence for abortion (and then some), they instead REDUCED the penalty for INFANTICIDE! At least that is what today's Jornada reports. The penalty for killing your newborn in Guanajuato is now a mere 3 to 8 years, so long as you do so within 24 hours after birth and your motive is "psychosocial." In other words, under this insanely conservative-Catholic PAN state government, a woman who drowns her newborn in the river is only slightly more criminal than one who takes a morning-after pill.
Lesson: If you want an abortion, go to D.F. If you want to kill your baby, come to Guanajuato.
Excellent observations, with which I agree wholeheartedly. The immediate factor seems to have been the UN visit, though it clearly came on the back of sustained pressure from local civil society.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me the government needed to free them because of pressure and increasing international attention as well, but could not make itself exonerate them, and therefore simply drafted a change to the law. As the women seem bent on clearing their name - a conviction of infanticide - the case may not go away for a while.
International news picked up the release as well:
http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1102ap_lt_mexico_women_freed.html?source=rss
Saludos