The following is a statement on the recent arrest of compañero Yorch of the Okupa Che in Mexico City.
On Thursday, December 8, 2022, at approximately 8:30 pm, in Ciudad Universitaria, UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) in the south of Mexico City, “Yorch” Jorge Esquivel was followed by three people in civilian clothes, once outside the university property, more than a dozen plainclothes police officers separated him from his bicycle and immobilized him in order to force him into a gray car without plates and with tinted windows. This is an illegal but common police practice in Mexico City. Jorge’s whereabouts were unknown until later that night, when he contacted a compañero to tell him that he was being held in the Reclusorio Preventivo Varonil Oriente (Mexico’s largest prison) and that his hearing was scheduled for the following morning. After a long wait, in the evening at the conclusion of the hearing, Jorge’s lawyer informed us that our compañero had been detained on the basis of a re-arrest warrant and that the judge had determined that the proceedings would be resumed during which he does not have the right to be released, so no bail was set.
It is important to emphasize that the arbitrary detention of “Yorch” is by no means an isolated event. For years, Jorge has been used as a scapegoat to legitimize an eventual violent eviction of the Okupa Auditorio Che Guevara, an occupied collective space that was won by popular organizing during the student strike of 1999-2000 and up to the present day. We share this communiqué from February 2016 to contextualize both Jorge’s most recent arrest and the events of the last few days that indicate that the university and local, city and federal level authorities are again planning to attempt a violent takeover of our community space.
We ask for your solidarity with both our compañero Jorge and the Okupa Auditorio Che Guevara by writing letters of support for Jorge in prison (we will soon let people know other ways to support), publicly denouncing these attacks and being on alert as the situation unfolds.
