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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | July 2005 
Government to Release 800 Indians
 El Universal
| | The indigenous captives have been found not guilty of committing any crimes. |
The Mexican government on Wednesday announced that it is moving to release from jail some 800 indigenous prisoners who are either innocent or were duped into committing federal crimes.
"We have found about 800 prisoners who are eligible" to be released, said the head of the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, Xochitl Gálvez, at a press conference.
She said her office would sign an agreement with the federal public safety minister next week to "clean out the jails and achieve the goal that not a single innocent prisoner remains."
Most of the Indians are incarcerated for drug trafficking or illegal weapons possession.
But many of them were tricked into transporting the drugs, including 60 elderly indigenous people who are imprisoned in Oaxaca.
"There are environmentalist prisoners from Guerrero, fishermen from Michoacan, two Tarahumara boys on whom a local political boss planted drugs and weapons and a boy who had a carbine in Yucatan and just for carrying it was given 10 years in prison," Gálvez said.
The cases of non-federal crimes are being handled in coordination with the state governments.
Gálvez said that an agreement had already been signed with the government of Oaxaca, one of the states with the largest indigenous population.
Mexico has a total of 105 million people, of whom about 10 million are members of various indigenous tribes. |
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