Veracruz proposes lesser charges for Twitter terrorism suspects

The state of Veracruz in Mexico wants to change its penal code to apply a lower charge against the jailed Twitter and Facebook users accused of terrorism for spreading unconfirmed rumors of an attack on local schools (link in Spanish).

A proposed change in Veracruz's laws would permit the government to punish the two social-networking users now behind bars, but for a lesser offense of "disruption of public order," rather than the original charges of terrorism and sabotage. Those charges carry a maximum sentence of 30 years.

Under the government's plan, teacher Gilberto Martinez Vera and journalist Maria de Jesus "Maruchi" Bravo would be retroactively charged with a crime that isn't even on the books, a scenario that Internet and human rights activists in Mexico promptly denounced as legally unfeasible.

The crime envisioned under the proposed law would carry a sentence of one to four years, meaning that Martinez and Bravo could possibly be set free after posting bail, the Veracruz government said.

In a telephone interview with La Plaza on Monday, Veracruz Interior Secretary Gerardo Buganza affirmed that the proposed law is a response to pressure from activists who have intensified calls for the release of Martinez and Bravo on free-speech grounds.

In addition, Buganza added, the administration of Gov. Javier Duarte was also responding with its plan to calls for "benevolence" from the state's Catholic Church hierarchy (link in Spanish). Martinez and Bravo "coordinated themselves," the secretary said, to spread panic among parents in a city on edge amid an uptick in drug-related violence.

"People were so desperate to reach their children, they blocked streets, they went the wrong way down one-way streets, and in fact even in the hospitals, both public and private, doctors and nurses left the sick to go fetch their kids," Buganza said. "This is very similar to what happened in the United States during the Orson Welles radio show, when no one knew that it was not fact. This was just like that."

Buganza dismissed reports that the parental panic in the port city of Veracuz on Aug. 25 started hours before the first online messages by Martinez and Bravo. Our report last week shows cracks appeared in the case almost immediately after the pair were arrested.

"This was not a game," Buganza said. "This was orchestrated, and was an act of irresponsibility."

The suspects' supporters, meanwhile, called the plan "inconceivable." They said Martinez and Bravo would not comply with the Veracruz proposal and instead would wait for a federal judge hear their request for release on Sept. 23. A group of activists attempted on Monday to visit the suspects in prison but were rebuffed by authorities.

"It's an aberration of the law," Jesus R. Robles, a human rights activist in Mexico City, said Tuesday. "You can't have a crime without a law existing against it. You can't have laws that prosecute people retroactively."

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Supporters of the so-called Twitter Terrorists gather Monday outside the state prison in Veracruz where they are being held. Credit: Cuartoscuro via CNN Mexico

Veracruz panic started before 'terrorist' tweets, reports say

Cracks are appearing in the case against the Twitter users in Mexico accused of terrorism for spreading rumors of an attack.

Local reports and claims suggest that the "panic" that spread over rumors of child abductions at school campuses started at least two hours before the online messages that could put a man and woman behind bars for 30 years.

The Veracruz government has not responded to the claims. 

One news story said the rush started after principals began calling parents to ask them to fetch their children, contributing to the swirling confusion in a city on edge over an increase in narco-related violence.

This video report in Spanish by the local Televisa affiliate shows parents running to reach campuses after they received calls from administrators. "They told us to come for our children because there could be some kind of attack, that it wasn't official," one parent said on camera.

No attack was actually confirmed, but earlier in the day a car caught fire near one Veracruz school and reports of a helicopter flying near another campus reportedly ignited the rush to yank kids from classes just days after the start of the school year (link in Spanish).

On Thursday and Friday, the Veracruz state interior secretary's office and the Education Ministry did not respond to repeated calls and emailed questions from La Plaza requesting official verification of what happened on the morning of Aug. 25.

Gov. Javier Duarte's administration released several statements after the incident saying it would go after all "cyber-terrorists" in Veracruz through its new "cyber-police" force. (Government statements in Spanish are here and here.)

The day after the incident, while authorities located and arrested the second so-called Twitter terrorist, state education authorities toured campuses and reassured principals and parents that all was in order. Duarte, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, spoke at a breakfast sponsored by the state teacher's union and called for "responsibility" and unity in Veracruz society.

The week in Latin America: His defense is cheese

Here are stories that made headlines this week in Latin America, and highlights from our coverage of the region by Times reporters and your blogger here at La Plaza:

Corruption scandal grows in Monterrey with cheese claim

The mayor of Monterrey -- Mexico's affluent city in mourning over the casino attack that left 52 dead -- has a brother who is apparently a cheese salesman and receives payments at blackjack tables at the rear of casinos. At least, that's how Manuel Jonas Larrazabal, brother of  Mayor Fernando Larrazabal, attempted to explain videos that surfaced this week showing him receiving bundles of cash at Monterrey casinos (link in Spanish).

The videos suggest corruption ties between Monterrey's political class and the casinos that have proliferated there and are considered magnets for organized crime, including the Casino Royale, which was attacked by suspected Zetas in the extortion-related firebombing that shocked the country. Local firefighters say exits were blocked, contributing to the high death toll. The owner of the Casino Royale has fled the country, authorities said.

Jonas Larrazabal, proved not to be a cheese salesman in any capacity, has been detained for questioning (link in Spanish). The mayor said he could not be held responsible for his sibling's actions.

2 female journalists found slain in Mexico City

The attacks on, threats against and killings of journalists that have risen in Mexico's drug war made a troubling entry to the relatively safe capital with the discovery Thursday of the bodies of two female former journalists, found naked, bound, and shot to death in the rough southeastern borough Iztapalapa, reports Tracy Wilkinson in The Times. 

Ana Marcela Yarce Viveros and Rocio Gonzalez Trapaga were linked to the muckracking news magazine Contralinea. Yarce helped found the magazine and was most recently in charge of selling advertising, a crucial role for a publication that does not receive the lucrative government ads that most others in Mexico enjoy. Gonzalez had been a reporter for media giant Televisa and was most recently working independently and also running a currency exchange booth at Mexico City's airport.

Mexico City Atty. Gen. Miguel Angel Mancera made calls to the families of the victims and promised that their deaths would be investigated and solved, and Congress held a moment of silence for the slain women, La Jornada reports (link in Spanish).

2 held on terrorism charges in Veracruz for tweets 

Veracruz is looking to press terrorism and sabotage charges against a man and woman who spread rumors online of an unconfirmed attack on a school, raising a host of questions about free-speech and the role of social networking sites in a drug war that has seen increasing self-censorship in the traditional news media.

The attack rumor panicked parents and prompted admonishing tweets from the Veracruz state government. But should @gilius_22 and @MARUCHIBRAVO spend 30 years behind bars for a few misinformed tweets?

Migrants return to a more prosperous Brazil

Brazil's economy is attracting migrants to return home to cash in on the strong currency and low unemployment rate, reports special correspondent Vincent Bevins from Salvador da Bahia. Brazilians are returning from the United States, Europe, and Japan as those economies struggle to regain ground after the global financial crisis.

"I never planned on leaving, really. I love it there," said Victor Bahia, 25, who had returned from California. "But my mom and everyone here kept telling me that this economy was exploding like never before, and all the work had dried up in the Bay Area. It's the same reason that the majority of the Brazilians I knew there were also leaving."

Gun scandal creeps closer to the White House

Times reporter Richard Serrano in Washington reports today that at least three officials in the White House were made aware of the failed gun-tracking program that saw hundreds of weapons "walked" into and lost in Mexico, fueling drug-related violence.

The officials who received emails about Operation Fast and Furious were Kevin M. O'Reilly, Dan Restrepo and Greg Gatjanis, all national security officials in the Obama administration. The U.S. gun bureau chief in Phoenix, where the failed operation was overseen, sought help from the White House to persuade Mexico's government to let U.S. agents recover weapons south of the border, Serrano reports.

"This is great," O'Reilly replied to one email referencing the gun operation. "Very informative."

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: An image from a surveillance video that shows Manuel Jonas Larrazabal, brother of Monterrey's mayor, receiving cash from a woman at a casino. Credit: Animalpolitico.com

Terrorism charges for 2 in Mexico who spread attack rumor on Twitter, Facebook

The government of Veracruz state in Mexico has jailed a man and woman on charges of terrorism and sabotage after they published rumors of an unconfirmed narco attack on a school on the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook (link in Spanish).

The arrests are sparking outcry from human rights groups and puzzling analysts over the question of whether Mexico is equipped to handle freedom-of-speech cases as they relate to the spiraling violence of the country's drug war.

Twitter and Facebook have become indispensable sources of news on attacks in communities where local news outlets are under the thumb of drug lords or no longer report on violent incidents. At the same time, attacks against or near schools have been reported since the start of the new school year last week, sometimes causing confusion or panic among parents.

In Veracruz, active Twitter user Gilberto Martinez Vera (@gilius_22) tweeted last Thursday about a supposed attack at a primary school in the municipality of Boca del Rio, next to the city of Veracruz. Martinez Vera's original tweet on the attack said: "They took 5 kids, armed group, total psychosis in the zone." He cited a sister-in-law but later said he had misidentified the school, and then mentioned another, all of which added to the confusion.

Maria de Jesus Bravo Pagola (@MARUCHIBRAVO) reportedly made similar statements on her Facebook account, leading to reports of panicked parents rushing to the school mentioned in their messages. Her Twitter shows inactivity since Aug. 22.

The attack account could not be confirmed by authorities. The following day, Martinez, a teacher, and Bravo, a journalist and former state bureaucrat, were arrested in their homes.

List of Chile dictatorship victims grows, sparking controversy

Chile's government has expanded its official list of victims of the Pinochet dictatorship to more than 40,000, but among the new names are victims of torture who later became torturers themselves, as well as a torture victim who fled and later returned to Chile to kill a right-wing leader.

Opposing interests contended this week that such names should be removed from the list.

The new report by the so-called Valech Commission (link in Spanish), in adding more names of recognized victims, has sparked debate over who can claim monetary compensation from the government. Victims are entitled to $256 a month as well as healthcare and other benefits.

The government now recognizes 9,795 more victims of torture or political imprisonment and 30 more people killed during the military regime led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

The dictatorship ruled Chile between 1973 and 1990. The new figures bring the total number of recognized victims during the period to 40,043.

But among those are victims who broke under torture and collaborated with the regime. One, Miguel Estay, became a notorious military torturer known as El Fanta. Another, Luz Arce, also collaborated with the dictatorship after suffering torture. Figures in the victims' movement are demanding that Estay and Acre be removed from the new list.

Lorena Pizarro, leader of a survivors organization, called the inclusion of Estay and Arce "an offense to the victims" (link in Spanish) and said the new Valech report loses legitimacy because of it.

Separately, the right-wing party Independent Democratic Union is protesting the inclusion of Galvarino Apablaza, a torture victim and later guerrilla leader who is wanted in Chile for the assassination of the party's founder, Jaime Guzman, after the return to democracy. Apablaza was granted asylum in Argentina, reports said.

A spokesman for the administration of President Sebastian Pinera -- the first conservative leader elected since the end of the dictatorship -- said the commission was independent and free to make its own findings. The commission sought only to establish who suffered violence or human rights abuses under the regime and did not take into account what a victim might have done later, the government said.

Other questions have been raised about the Valech report. Victims are being named, but what about the torturers and agents of the regime? Many are jailed and face charges for human-rights abuses, but many more remain free, critics said.

"I was tortured, and therefore someone tortured me. Where are those persons?" said Manuel Guerrero Antequera, son of one of Estay's victims (link in Spanish) and a now councilman for the Ñuñoa district of Santiago. "Today they are active in society. The Valech report has no path to justice."

RELATED: 

Ghosts of Pinochet regime haunt Chile's president

Pablo Neruda's death to be investigated as Chile exhumes its past

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Lorena Pizarro, leader of a dictatorship survivors movement in Chile, denounced the inclusion of some new names on a list of victims. Credit: El Mostrador

Zara contractor in Brazil accused of slave labor

Brazil's labor ministry is investigating a supplier for the Spanish clothing brand Zara for allegations of slave-labor conditions at sweatshops in Sao Paolo, and is also opening labor investigations against other international companies, reports O Globo, a Brazilian daily newspaper (link in Portuguese, in automatic translation). 

Zara's parent company, Inditex, said it was unaware of what it called "unauthorized outsourcing" for Zara clothing in Brazil. The company faces fines and possible sanctions against future economic activity in the country. Zara maintains more than 1,000 stores worldwide, including retail locations across Latin America, Europe, Asia, the United States and the Middle East.

In Sao Paolo, migrants primarily from Bolivia -- including minors and undocumented immigrants -- were found to be producing Zara clothes in sweatshops with poor ventilation and hygiene and unacceptable fire risks. Workers were being paid a little more than $1 for jeans that would eventually retail at more than $100, and some were locked into paying their wages to human traffickers who smuggled them into the country, reports said. The clothes, made by a supplier identified as AHA, were destined for Zara stores in Brazil.

Brazilian labor authorities are now expanding their investigation by requesting information on work conditions from several other major companies producing clothes in Brazil, including Ecko and Billabong, O Globo reported.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: A Zara storefront in Brazil. Credit: O Globo

The week in Latin America: Don't cross this union boss

Here are stories that made top headlines this week in Latin America, and highlights from our coverage of the region by Times reporters and your blogger here at La Plaza:

Poverty grows in Mexico

Mexico's government and political class struggled to come to terms with new figures that showed poverty is steadily on the rise in Mexico, swelling to nearly half the national population. Of those 52 million Mexicans now identified as poor, more than 11 million live in extreme poverty, the independent findings said. "This government like no other has sought to give opportunity to the poor," President Felipe Calderon responded.

Boom times in Argentina?

Argentina's economy, meanwhile, is booming and expected to grow by 8% this year, reports special correspondent Chris Kraul from Buenos Aires. Exports, construction, and auto manufacturing are on a roll. But trouble spots abound, including a rising inflation rate and capital flight of billions of dollars. "No one questions that the economy is running well," one analyst said, "but it's running on steroids."

This is Elba Esther's world

The poor quality of public education in Mexico is considered a key factor in explaining migration to the United Stats and the lure of organized crime for many young Mexicans. For many people, the failure of the schools has a person's name: Elba Esther Gordillo, the flamboyant chief of Mexico's behemoth teachers union. A profile of the hugely powerful Gordillo by Times correspondent Tracy Wilkinson -- for which "La Maestra" declined to be interviewed -- lays bare how entrenched power hierarchies in Mexico reinforce crushing class barriers for millions.

A 6,000-year sentence in Guatemala

Four former Guatamalan soldiers were handed a stunning sentence of more than 6,000 years each for involvement in a notorious massacre during Guatemala's long civil war. Although the maximum time anyone can actually spend behind bars in Guatemala is 50 years, the sentences sent a strong message to the international human rights community on the pursuit of justice for wartime atrocities in the small Central American nation. The 1982 Dos Erres massacre that led to Tuesday's sentencing involved the systematic rape and brutal beating deaths of 201 civilians. The former soldiers maintain their innocence. 

-- Daniel Hernandez

Photo: Teachers union boss Elba Esther Gordillo of Mexico. Credit: Associated Press

Police chief in Ciudad Juarez claims Mexican feds tried to kill him

The police chief of Ciudad Juarez has alleged that officers with Mexico's Federal Police attempted to kill him during a chaotic operation on Monday night, ratcheting up an increasingly bitter turf war over who gets to police the troubled border city.

Police Chief Julian Leyzaola said that Federal Police officers fired on his vehicle without warning during a massive police response to a series of shootouts late Monday in the municipal prison. In a statement, the Federal Police said Leyzaola's vehicle had crossed a security line, "out of protocol," while federal authorities attempted to contain what they called a possible prison break.

One television news crew caught a federal officer saying "Who was that?" when Leyzaola's convoy passed, the El Paso Times reported.

"Why did they fire at me?" Leyzaola said during a news conference Wednesday (link in Spanish). "This was a secured zone. They had no reason to fire on me."

The spat suggests another breakdown of coordination among security forces in Ciudad Juarez, where more than 8,000 people have died since the flare-up of narco-related violence in 2008. It's not the first time such an incident has grabbed headlines; federal and local police officers have openly confronted each other at crime scenes in the past (link in Spanish).

Leyzaola, a former military officer, most recently served as "top cop" in Tijuana, where he was praised by U.S. authorities for significantly bringing down the crime rate. But for the international human-rights community, the chief is a red flag.

In Tijuana he faced allegations of routine torture of police officers suspected of corruption. Less than a month into the job in Ciudad Juarez, as The Times reported, he again faced claims from human-rights lawyers, this time for unlawfully rounding up and disappearing suspects.

Seventeen people died in the Monday night incident in Juarez, including one woman. Eleven of the victims were not serving sentences but in "preventive" detention, in most cases for just days or weeks before their deaths, reports El Diario de Juarez (link in Spanish). Surveillance footage from inside the prison showed masked gunmen with assault weapons firing into the temporary cell where those 11 inmates reportedly died. Six others were killed in other cells, reports said.

Leyzaola filed a court claim against the Federal Police on Wednesday. He's also calling for the federal force stand down and leave the local police work to him, but President Felipe Calderon's top national security spokesman said Wednesday that the agency has been successful in the city and will not be leaving.

In June, Leyzaola survived an alleged assassination attempt in downtown Juarez. He reportedly survived four assassination attempts during his time in Tijuana. In a U.S. diplomatic cable from 2009 that was leaked earlier this year, a U.S. official wrote of allegations that Leyzaola favored one cartel capo over another as they battled for Tijuana's smuggling route.

— Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Lt. Col. Julian Leyzaola, former police chief in Tijuana, is sworn in Ciudad Juarez in March. Credit: Agence-France Presse.

The week in Latin America: Peru's African legacy

Here are stories that made top headlines in Latin America this week, and highlights from our coverage of the region by Times reporters and your blogger here at La Plaza:

Significant court ruling in Mexico

In Mexico, the Supreme Court ruled that human-rights abuse claims against the military must be tried in civilian courts and no longer in closed-door military tribunals.

The ruling presents a test to Mexico's fledgling civilian justice system, still in dire need of reform, as well as President Felipe Calderon's military-led strategy against organized crime. Abuse claims against Mexico's armed forces have skyrocketed since soldiers and marines were dispatched to the streets in 2006 to combat the country's drug cartels.

Searching for the missing children of El Salvador

Times correspondent Ken Ellingwood was recently in El Salvador, where he reported a profile of an organization, named Pro-Busqueda, which uses the modern tools of social media as well as "old–fashioned grunt work" to locate missing children from El Salvador's brutal civil war.

Read the story here. 

Excavating Afro-Peruvian history

From Peru, Times correspondent Tracy Wilkinson offers a look at an acclaimed singer who is seeking to reclaim and celebrate the country's rich history of African migration and culture.

One such icon of the Afro-Peruvian past, says singer Susana Baca, is the instrument known as the cajon, or box, which Baca has incorporated into her records. "A lot of people saw this as the music of the slaves," she explains. "They were ashamed of it."

Gun scandal grows in the United States

With wide implications for Mexico and its conflict against organized crime, the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal continued to reverberate north of the border. This week, the federal government imposed a tougher rule for the reporting of semiautomatic weapon sales in border states.

Revelations from the scandal, in which deadly weapons were knowingly "walked" into Mexico by U.S. agents, confirm that the United States government has been essentially arming both sides of the drug war in Mexico.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Peruvian singer Susana Baca, left, in the village of Santa Barbara, Peru. Credit: Giancarlo Aponte, For The Times

U.S. citizens in Ciudad Juarez prison lose appeal against drug convictions

Two U.S. citizens serving time in a Mexican border prison for what their supporters call a bogus drug-smuggling convictions have lost their final appeal for freedom.

A Mexican federal court ruled on Tuesday that Shohn Huckabee and Carlos Quijas, both of El Paso, will remain behind bars in a case that began with a December 2009 incident. They were stopped by Mexican soldiers in Ciudad Juarez and two suitcases of marijuana were found in their truck. They were arrested, taken to a remote location to be questioned, and then handed over to civilian authorities, who later found the men guilty of carrying drugs with the intent to sell.

The Americans' families and lawyers -- as well as three witnesses -- claim the soldiers planted the drugs in their truck and later tortured the men. Mexico's military denied the torture accusations. The case has been described as another example of the failings in Mexico's broken justice system. 

Huckabee's father, Kevin Huckabee, told the El Paso Times that losing the appeal was especially disappointing because he said a magistrate judge seemed sympathetic to his son's claims in an informal conversation. Additionally, other Juarez inmates seeking "amparo" appeals had been granted their release recently, he said.

"The only difference I can think of is that [Huckabee and Quijas] are American," the elder Huckabee told the El Paso paper. 

Ciudad Juarez has the sad distinction of being the site of the worst drug-related violence in Mexico as well as one of the largest concentrations of human-rights abuse claims against security forces, as La Plaza has previously reported.

Mexican and international human-rights organizations say the Mexican military has often planted drugs or evidence on citizens in an effort to mark up arrests and convictions. Gustavo de la Rosa, a prominent human-rights lawyer in Ciudad Juarez, has said he knows of 70 such cases in the city alone. 

Despite concerns over abuses, Mexican soldiers continue to run checkpoints along the border looking for drugs.

In another such case, supporters claim Ana Martinez, an elementary school teacher in El Paso, had 105 pounds of marijuana planted in her vehicle by the military before she crossed the border to work one morning in late May.

The case highlights the risks faced by binational motorists like Martinez who are enrolled in a U.S. rapid border-crossing program known as Sentri. Smugglers have been known to stash drugs in Sentri-enrolled vehicles without drivers' knowledge. Martinez, 35, is now behind bars and awaiting trial. She is teaching English to fellow inmates in the meantime, the El Paso Times reports.

Huckabee, 24, and Quijas, 37, meanwhile, have three years remaining to serve on their five-year sentence.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: U.S. citizens Carlos Quijas, left, and Shohn Huckabee, in prison in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Credit: Alejandro Bringas / Reuters