Nestora Salgado Returns Home to Seattle After Two Years in a Mexican Prison Venice Buhain - Seattle Globalist
go to original March 23, 2016

Nestora Salgado returned to hugs from her husband and supporters cheering her name on Tuesday. (Associated Press)

Nestora Salgado, the Renton woman who spent more than two years in prison after leading a community police force in her hometown in Mexico, returned triumphantly to Seattle Tuesday, greeted at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport by a few dozen supporters who have advocated for her release.

“I’m happy to be here, I’m happy to see everyone here. I feel excited, but it’s difficult for me to say how I feel,” she told reporters in an interview that was a mix of Spanish and English. “It’s sad too because the life I passed in jail is terrible. It’s terrible the jail in Mexico. But I’m here. Thank you God, thank you to everybody. I’m here.”

Salgado, a naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in the Seattle area for 20 years, was behind bars in Mexico for 31 months after being accused by the state of Guerrero of kidnapping after the community police force that she led in Olinala arrested a town official and two others in connection with a theft.

She initially was put into solitary confinement for two years. She said the inadequate health care exacerbated ongoing health issues with her spine and pain in her legs and arm that stem from a car accident in 2002. She was sent to a jail in Mexico City last year after she held a hunger strike in protest of the lack of health care.

However, in the past few weeks, all the charges against her were dropped, which cleared the way for Salgado’s release.

Read the rest at Seattle Globalist

Related: Nestora Salgado Campaigns in U.S. for Political Prisoners in Mexico (Mexico Voices)

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