Jailed Washington State Vigilante Police Chief Goes on Hunger Strike teleSUR
go to original May 9, 2015

Nestora Salgado speaks to community members at a gathering in Olinalá, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, before she went to prison. (Facebook)

Salgado has been refused medical attention and due legal process for over two years, and “cannot endure anymore,” she says.

Nestora Salgado Garcia, the chief of an indigenous community police force in Mexico, started a hunger strike this week. Salgado is demanding access to due trial after being held in a Mexican prison for over two years without one and no advances in her case.

Mexican media confirmed that Salgado started a hunger strike Tuesday. According to her husband, Jose Luis Avila Baez, “she could not endure any more.”

“I'm on hunger strike because they are not respecting my rights, my human rights. They are not treating me like a human,” said Salgado.

The former police chief has been refused medical attention. She recently developed a case of neuropathy in her hands and feet – a disease that affects your nerves and may impair movement and sensations, as well as gland and organ function – and has not been allowed treatment or to see a doctor, said the King County Council members advocating for her release.

Salgado, a United States citizen, was arrested in her hometown of Olinala in the Mexican state of Guerrero in August of 2013 for her work with a local indigenous community police force. She had traveled to the area to re-establish her roots after living and working in Renton, Washington for over 20 years.

According to media reports, Salgado was one of the main organizers of the community police – a form of policing that has become popular in certain areas of Mexico where community members feel the local or state police cannot, or will not, protect them. The process is legal under both the Mexican constitution and Guerrero state law.

Read the rest at teleSUR

Palabras de Nestora en Buenavista (armagedonmaya)

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