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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| uba grabe havin influence on mexico. call the lawyers. |
| 2005-02-01 |
| MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Deprived of their flat-screen TVs, mobile phones, pizza deliveries and long visits from lovers, inmates at Mexico's top security prison complained on Monday they are being treated "like dogs." A government crackdown in prisons, aimed especially at drug lords and other violent criminals, has the prisoners of La Palma jail close to Mexico City up in arms at the "subhuman" conditions they face. On Monday, they paid for a full-page advertisement in Mexico's top daily Reforma and called on President Vicente Fox to respect their human rights. They also want the right to buy the soft drinks of their choice from the jail's small store. Over the past month, Fox has sent troops into prisons across Mexico, including La Palma. In cell-by-cell searches, soldiers have stripped inmates of their illegal luxuries. Conjugal visits have been halted too. High-profile jailed drug lords have been switched to other prisons to break up their in-jail rackets and to make it more difficult to run their cartels from behind bars. It was not clear who paid for the advertisement that was signed simply "La Palma inmates." Powerful prisoners in Mexican jails have long enjoyed privileges, whereas rank and file criminals are often abused by jailers. In the advertisement, La Palma's prisoners claim hooded guards are now torturing them. They say they are only being served one cold meal a day, at 1 a.m. "People dressed in black, blue and gray, covering their faces with ski masks, constantly come into our cells and hit us and kick us, telling us that for real social rehabilitation, we have to obey orders and we are only going to understand that through violence," the prisoners said. "This is degrading us, treating us like dogs, like animals, like we are worthless, telling us that we are in this place to be severely punished because we are the scum of society," they said. "We only ask to be treated like the humans we are ... The fact that we have been deprived of our freedom in no way means that our most basic rights have stopped as Mexican citizens. Therefore we ask for clemency so that justice be done and our human rights respected," they said. |
| Posted by:muck4doo |
| #7 ---This is degrading us, treating us like dogs, like animals, like we are worthless, telling us that we are in this place to be severely punished because we are the scum of society," they said.-- They are. What's the problem? |
| Posted by: anonymous2u 2005-02-01 8:12:42 PM |
| #6 make sure the flammables are in the cells, not the hallways |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-02-01 7:10:45 PM |
| #5 Maybe they can subcontract prison management to the Saudis... |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-02-01 7:04:08 PM |
| #4 I have some panties to lend them. I think they should import some Crossfire ™ |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2005-02-01 5:31:24 PM |
| #3 Maybe they can start up an exchange program with the Bangladeshi cops. They can show the Mexicans the old "moonlit ride in the middle of the night" trick. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2005-02-01 5:04:39 PM |
| #2 What? No Panties? Where's Lyndie England when we need her? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-02-01 3:47:24 PM |
| #1 *violin plays softly* |
| Posted by: Destro 2005-02-01 3:41:18 PM |