[progchat_action] Fw: FNS News: Prominent Ciudad Juarez Women's Activist Arrested Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 23:29:20 -0500 (CDT) ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2008 5:35 PM Subject: FNS News: Prominent Ciudad Juarez Women's Activist Arrested April 5, 2008 Ciudad Juarez News Prominent Women's Activist, Farm Leader Arrested Cipriana Jurado, a prominent Ciudad Juarez women's rights activist, is now free after posting a $700 bond. The director of the Worker Research and Solidarity Center, Jurado was arrested by Mexican federal police outside her home on Wednesday, April 2. The veteran activist was charged with blocking a public roadway during an October 2005 protest sponsored by the binational Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice and other organizations at one of the international bridges that link Ciudad Juarez with El Paso, Texas. Also arrested on the same charges as Jurado was Carlos Chavez Quevedo, who was reportedly picked up by federal police in the city of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. Chavez is a co-founder of the National Agrodynamic farm organization, whose leader Armando Villareal Martha was assassinated in Nuevo Casas Grandes last month. According to Chihuahua state legislator Victor Quintana, at least 40 other arrest warrants stemming from the October 2005 protest are pending. No additional word of Chavez's detention status was available as Frontera NorteSur went to press. A former maquiladora worker and a member of the PRD political party, Jurado has been active in a variety of labor, environmental and human rights causes in Ciudad Juarez and the Mexico-US border region. A long-time supporter of relatives of femicide victims, Jurado was reportedly arrested after returning from forensic offices where she had gone on business related to investigations of the women's murders. Interviewed by the local press after her release, Jurado contended that she resisted officers who did not show her an arrest warrant. The policemen were driving a vehicle without license plates and with tainted windows (similar to the vehicles employed by drug cartel hit men) and possessed dubious identifications, she said. As a result of the stand-off, the police officers shoved her into their vehicle, Jurado charged. Jurado's detention came in the middle of a major operation by Mexican federal police and soldiers ostensibly aimed at organized crime in Ciudad Juarez. On Friday, April 4, US Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza visited Ciudad Juarez to express the Bush Administration's support for Mexico City's border military offensive. It wasn't immediately clear why the Mexican federal government suddenly acted on legal issues almost three years old at a time when Mexican troops and federal police were supposedly focused on dislodging the power of well-rooted drug cartels. "(Government officials) are taking advantage of this situation to resolve one thing with another," said former Chihuahua Women's Institute head Vicky Caraveo. "We don't know the purposes of the (arrests). We know we are in a difficult situation and we know they are carrying out operations against delinquency, but (Jurado) is not a delinquent. She's an authentic social activist. If this happens to her, it is a warning to us what will follow." Jurado's arrest quickly drew responses from US and Mexican supporters who sent e-mails and organized a demonstration in front of federal court offices in Ciudad Juarez. Individuals and groups who rallied to Jurado's defense included Casa Amiga's Esther Chavez Cano and Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa. After leaving jail, Jurado charged that her detention was a case of government repression. "We are going to continue struggling for the causes we have struggled for all these years," she said, "because we have a commitment to the community and to our children. We don't want them to live with the repression and the problems with which we are living." Additional sources: Lapolaka.com, April 4 and 5, 2008. La Jornada, April 4 and 5, 2008. Articles by Ruben Villalpando and M.Breach. Norte, April 5, 2008. Articles by Luis Carlos Ortega and Felix A. Gonzalez. El Diario de Juarez, April 5, 2008. Articles by Gabriela Minjares, Juan de Dios Olivas and Sandra Rodrmguez. Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico For a free electronic subscription email fnsnews@nmsu.edu This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm ------------------------------------