By RICARDO CASTILLO

Police Brutality Accusations

After a raucous weekend of protests and arbitrary arrests, the Jalisco State Human Rights Commission (CEDHJ) is demanding that all police commanders who participated in the detentions be removed from their posts.

At the top of the list is the state attorney general, Gerardo Octavio Solís, who allegedly ordered the arrests of the protesters, mostly young people, and the internment of six of them at the top security penitentiary Puente Grande.

Solís, along with Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro, claimed that a group of agents belonging to the state attorney general office were apparently ordered by someone “from outside the government,” hinting at an infiltration in police corps by the criminal organization New Generation Jalisco Cartel.

CEDHJ President Alfonso Hernández Barrón said Solís, and all those who participated in the arrests, must be removed from their jobs to avoid any possible conflict of interest.

Alfaro said that police saved the young detainees and made reference to the 2014 disappearance of 43 students at Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, where the students went missing after police turned them over to a drug cartel.

“We avoided another Ayotzinapa,” Alfaro said, claiming attorney general Solís and his agents saved the young men.

Dozens of arrestees are now saying that they were kidnapped, and then dropped way outside of the Guadalajara city limits, claiming that they were victims of abuse of power by the masked arresting officers, all dressed in black civilian clothing.

Notimex on Strike

The Mexican government’s official news agency Notimex stopped servicing nationwide newspapers as of Tuesday, June 9, after the service’s ruling governing junta ordered it to do so in compliance with a command by the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration (JFCA) Junta over the conflict between the union and current management.

Notimex editor-in-chief Sanjuana Martínez notified all the agency’s customers that, since Feb. 21, the Notimex Workers Union has been on strike, but that Notimex had obtained a temporary habeas corpus (amparo) to continue operations, which was subsequently invalidated.

Now negotiations are in the hands of the ruling governing junta integrated by appointed officers from the Interior, Public Education, Treasury, Foreign Relations and National Electoral Institute authorities.

Their job now is to find a solution to the complicated conflict between the union and the controversial editor.

The head of the governing junta, Victor Fernández Peña of the Foreign Relations Secretariat, said the junta respects both sides, hence stopping work at the Notimex news agency was the best course of action to hear allegations from both parties.

Trans-Isthmus Project Launched

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) on Monday, June 8, launched the 20-billion peso project for the construction of new rail tracks and 10 industrial parks along the 206-kilometer railroad from Salina Cruz to Coatzacoalcos in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz.

The parks will be designed to operate maquiladora in-bond assembly plant industries as in Mexico’s northern border.

The new railways will have trains both for cargo and passengers.

AMLO Doesn’t Want to Mess

When asked about the documentary film called “Hybrid War,” in which retired General Tomás Ángeles says that he was the first to call to the attention of former President Felipe Calderón while in his first year in office (2007) the involvement of now-detained in New York Security Secretary Genaro García Luna’s links to protect the “Pacific Cartel,”  AMLO just answered, “I don’t want to mess with those cases.”

Ángeles claimed that the protection García Luna gave to the Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán cartel fragmented criminal groups, detonating the brutal intra-gang violence Mexico has seen over the past 13 years.

Cancun to Reopen, Slowly, but Surely

Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquín González announced on Monday, June 8, the partial reopening for business of all the state’s tourist destinations.

The new normal includes the certification of each of the 4,700 establishments, including hotels, swimming facilities, restaurants and spas along the Riviera Maya and in Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel.

Most establishments will enjoy a deferral in the payment of gas, electricity and water services and there will be new facilities to treat covid-19 affected patients.

Robledo Infected, But…

Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) Director Zoé Robledo has been quarantined due to being infected with the covid-19 virus.

Still, from seclusion, Robledo issued a tweet defending himself from the accusation that he was favoring his relatives with IMSS contracts.

“There is no IMSS contract with any company or relative of mine,” he said. “That accusation is totally false.”

Robledo demanded that those accusing him in the press present  proof of what they claim, and to sue him publicly in order for him to formally deny the allegations.

Sports: Uneasy Legs

Coach Ignacio Ambriz and the León soccer team got back to training on Monday, June 8 at the club’s facilities.

The players were divided into three different groups to keep safe distancing among them.

Ambriz said all of the club’s personnel had been tested for covid-19 over the past weekend, coming up with two positives, one player and one assistant.

Both were immediately separated until they recover. Their names were not mentioned “in respect of their privacy.”

…June 10, 2020