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RIGHTS-MEXICO: Jailed for Extending a Helping Hand

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Mar 5 2007 (IPS) - Like many of her neighbours, Concepción Moreno was in the habit of giving food, and sometimes shelter, to Central American immigrants. Two years ago she was sent to jail for this, but along with hundreds of thousands of others in Mexico, her case smacks of injustice.

Moreno, 48, is a single mother who lived in a tumbledown shack by the railway lines, and earned her living taking in other people’s washing and ironing. Since her arrest, her neighbours are afraid of helping Central American migrants who travel through Mexico on their way to the United States.

Moreno’s home town is Epigmenio González, located 200 kilometres northwest of Mexico City. Her friends there took up a collection of 600 dollars to pay for a lawyer to secure her freedom, but he vanished along with the money.

The highest authority in the township is Ramón Quintanar, who also works as a bus driver to make ends meet. Quintanar and Moreno’s son clamoured for justice in telephone interviews with IPS.

Immigrants board freight trains in the south of the country to ride to its northern border. The trains trundle daily through Epigmenio González, also known as El Ahorcado (The Hanged Man).

On their journey through Mexico, these foreigners suffer all manner of abuses, but occasionally they get help from religious groups, non-governmental organisations, and individuals like the residents of El Ahorcado with its 15,000 people, most of whom work as small farmers, in factories, or at poorly paid jobs.

“We used to help the Central Americans as a matter of course. Doña Concha (Moreno) wasn’t the only one to give them a hand, but now people are afraid to do so,” said Quintanar, subdelegate of the township which is part of the municipality of Pedro Escobedo, in the state of Querétaro.

“She was not a ‘pollera’ (human trafficker), don’t even imagine it. Her house is next to the railroad lines, and she used to give the migrants food, then they would be off on their way. To be honest with you, she sometimes gave them shelter, when they arrived exhausted and badly treated,” said Quintanar, who earns about 100 dollars a month.

Federal Investigation Agency (AFI) police, directed by the state Attorney General’s Office, arrested Moreno at her home on Mar. 10, 2005. She was accused of trafficking in persons, which according to Mexican law is the act of aiding persons to enter another country illegally, a crime which carries a sentence of up to six years in prison.

“My mother has already been in prison for two years. She has no (hired) lawyer, she’s accused as a ‘pollera’. The police just turned up, saw that there were some Central Americans outside our house, threatened us with weapons and took her away,” said Jorge Pérez, 27, the son of the accused, a construction worker.

“We’ve tried to get her out (of prison), but we don’t have the resources. We need money and we need to persuade the authorities to listen to us. But they haven’t responded, and I don’t know what’s going to happen now, we don’t really understand who to turn to, and I don’t even know if she’ll get a lawyer to help her,” added Pérez.

When a defendant cannot afford a lawyer, the State provides one at no cost. But neither her family nor the authorities are aware of any defence lawyer having taken her case. The poverty and isolation of Moreno and her family makes them particularly vulnerable to the miscarriage of justice.

Approximately half of the 210,000 prison inmates in Mexico have not been sentenced. Among those who have, 80 percent never met the judge who passed sentence on them, and 70 percent had no legal defence when they responded to the prosecutor’s charges, according to a study by the Centre for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE).

Due process in Mexico’s criminal justice system is a luxury for the few, the non-governmental United Nations Association of Mexico said in January at the presentation of a study on the issue.

“Because we’re lowly and unimportant, they pay no attention to us and exclude us. If only someone would help us now,” said Quintanar.

In early 2007, Moreno’s case was taken up by the public National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), at the instigation of the same body at the state level in Querétaro. Authorities at the national CNDH would not release their records or information about intended action to IPS, citing reasons of confidentiality.

Moreno’s son maintained that his mother “was only doing what everyone else in El Ahorcado did, which was to help the Central Americans.”

“If my mother were a ‘pollera’, she wouldn’t be living in this house we have. This is unjust, so please, someone must come and help us. Say that we’re desperate now, and so is she,” he asked.

Quintanar described Moreno’s house as a one-room, dirt floor hut, walled with cardboard, plastic sheeting and wood.

“She’s a good person, she only helped the Central Americans, without charge,” he said.

“We don’t know how to help her now, because we don’t have the money to bring a lawsuit on her behalf. Around here, we’re all practically penniless,” Quintanar complained.