US-Mexican Activist Nestora Salgado Seeking Political Asylum in Spain Armando G. Tejeda - La Jornada
go to original May 28, 2016

The renowned Mexican community police force leader Nestora Salgado was freed in March after being held as a political prisoner on false accusations. (teleSUR)

Nestora Salgado, the Community Police commander from Guerrero who was released last March after spending two and a half years held in a Nayarit prison, asks support in order to seek political asylum in Spain and settle permanently in this country, far from the threats and structural violence that she and her family suffer daily.

In the coming days, the 44-year-old from Olinalá, Guerrero, will initiate proceedings to be allowed in by the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR), which is the public body that will ultimately decide whether or not to grant the status of "political asylum-seeker."

According to what La Jornada corroborated from a source directly related to the Mexican citizen's petition for asylum, in recent weeks Salgado has been gathering support from organizations for defense of human rights, such as Amnesty International, and such political parties as the United Left, Izquierda Unida (IU) and We Can, Podemos, in order to make a formal request for the status of political asylum-seeker. In addition to guaranteed protection of her safety, it would allow her to bring her immediate family and thus prevent their further suffering the threats and attacks that they endure in Mexico and that up to now no public authority has prevented.

The activist was elected comandanta of the indigenous Olinalá Community Police when, in 2011, 20 years after her migration to the United States [Salgado is also a naturalized U.S. citizen], she decided to return to Mexico, her homeland. Her return to the country shook her, as much by everything that had changed in her region and her indigenous village as by the pervasiveness of organized crime and drug trafficking in Guerrero. She decided to face it and struggle using the Community Police, organizing the population to avoid the routine outrages both of the drug traffickers and of some corrupt local authorities. Her presence and her actions eventually led to serious unease in the state government, and she soon became embroiled in a legal proceeding that eventually identified her as guilty of 50 kidnappings, which portended a lengthy sentence.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Related: Three Comrades of Community Police Leader Nestora Salgado Still Political Prisoners (teleSUR)

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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