Catholic residents of the communities of Pinal Salinas and Tzajalnab, in the municipality of Zinacantán, detained and beat 11 evangelical Indigenous people after they refused to accept religious positions and finance Catholic festivities.
The victims reported that the persecution has been ongoing for more than four years. During this period, the aggressors cut off the electricity and water supply to three Protestant families; they also blocked roads to prevent vehicles from passing and prohibited children from attending the Lázaro Cárdenas elementary school, all in an attempt to force them to leave the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Karen Ruiz Gómez, a resident of Salinas, recounted that the attack occurred when about 20 people were participating in a service outside a private home. According to her testimony, Catholic neighbors were monitoring the area and used a vehicle driven by an intoxicated person to block the road. Later, a bulldozer dumped gravel on the site as more people arrived to document the religious event.
“Local authorities demanded to speak with the residents of Tzajalnab who had come to show their solidarity. At that moment, they arrested Francisco and beat another man who was taking photographs,” Ruiz Gómez stated outside the Indigenous Prosecutor’s Office in San Cristóbal, where she went to file a formal complaint. She added that the mob also assaulted her husband, Lorenzo Moisés Hernández Pérez, and arrested her father-in-law, Mariano Hernández Guillén.
In total, the community is holding 11 people, several of them with visible injuries. The aggressors are conditioning their release on their abandoning their religion. “We accept community positions, but not those of their church,” Ruiz Gómez emphasized, demanding that the State guarantee freedom of religion.
Antonio Vázquez Méndez, secretary of the organization Manos a la Obra (Hands to Work), warned that the conflict escalated on September 15, when the evangelicals were given a week’s notice to leave their homes. Although the intervention of Mayor José Martínez Pérez halted the immediate eviction, the siege continued.
“This is a matter of faith, not a community problem. They are conditioning water and electricity on religious donations. They have threatened to kill them if they don’t renounce their beliefs,” Vázquez Méndez emphasized. The representative urged state authorities to open a dialogue or enforce the law to free those being held.
Source: jornada
