April 1 - In what has been declared a stunning but partial victory for the Other Campaign, the Chiapas government freed thirty political prisoners last night in response to years of protests for their freedom, but not before giving some of them one last thorough beating. Seventeen prisoners remain incarcerated in Chiapas and Tabasco, eight of whom are on a hunger strike that has lasted 37 days so far. Prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families and supporters are gearing up for an increasingly tense battle for the freedom of the remaining political prisoners. Outside medical experts say that the symptoms the hunger strikers report and the amount of time they've gone without food has put their lives in danger, and that they may begin to die as early as Sunday. The state government, however, declared that it refuses to negotiate over the remaining prisoners.

The liberated prisoners have declared that they will remain in the plantón (permanent protest encampment) outside the state government headquarters in Tuxtla until all of their compañeros are free. They maintain their fearless resolve despite the government's best efforts to keep them away, including threats and physical violence. Police refused to allow prisoners from the Cereso #17 prison in Catazaja to see the route they were taking to arrive at the government's press conference where it released the prisoners as part of a media stunt. According to the recently released prisoners, the police beat them on the way to the press conference until their heads and arms were purple and they were bleeding. Their wrists were bound tightly with tape, cutting off circulation to their hands. After the press conference, the police loaded them back into a government vehicle, beat some of them again, and told them they were going to be returned to jail.

Their Crime: Being Indigenous and Poor

The prisoners belong to a variety of organizations, including EZLN bases of support, adherents to the Zapatistas' Other Campaign, an evangelical Christian organization, and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD in its Spanish initials). The amount of time they've spent in jail varies: the two Zapatista prisoners in Tabasco have been imprisoned for twelve years, other prisoners for one year.

The prisoners were incarcerated under a wide array of circumstances. Paramilitary organizations accused some Zapatista support bases of crimes the paramilitaries themselves committed. Antonio Garcia Flores, for example, is a member of the EZLN and participated in the Zapatista's 1994 uprising. He was arrested then in Ocosingo after members of the paramilitary organization Chinchulines turned him in, then later released under an amnesty law that freed all Zapatista prisoners. The Chinchulines later dissolved and integrated themselves into the Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights (Opddic in its Spanish initials), an anti-Zapatista paramilitary organization with a civilian face of legitimacy. In 1999, Opddic members accused him of “robbery with violence,” and in March 2006 the government imprisoned him under those charges. After serving two years in prison for a crime he did not commit, he was released last night.