Aurelia García Cruceño, a young Nahua indigenous woman, was imprisoned in 2019 accused of the homicide after suffering a miscarriage. Months before, Aurelia had been sexually abused by a community authority from the town of Xochicalco, in Guerrero, where she is from.
She did not report her attacker because of the position he held in the community and out of shame for this to be known and fear of being judged, she fled to Iguala. It was there that, when she regained consciousness after suffering heavy bleeding and being taken to the hospital unconscious, she was handcuffed and the Attorney General of the State of Guerrero had her under police surveillance. A day later she was arrested and taken to the Iguala Social Reintegration Center where she was sentenced to 13 years and four months in prison.
The case was taken up by the lawyers Veronica Garzon and Ximena Ugarte, who immediately denounced irregularities. More than three years have passed and Aurelia is still in prison.
“Currently her criminal defense, represented by the Mexican Institute of Human Rights and Democracy, focuses on evidencing the violations of her human rights that have occurred and on restoring the procedure so that an oral trial can be carried out where there is a possibility of fighting for her innocence.”
On December 20th, a resolution hearing of the process will be held. However, recently her lawyers have denounced that they are victims of intimidation by the judiciary, as on December 15th they received a notification for a hearing to be held that same day where they affirm “they are intended to be accused of violating rights of presumption of innocence of their own defendant, in addition to charging them with the commission of the crime against the administration of justice and whatever results from that.”
Therefore, they have launched an urgent action and have requested that the non-criminalization and intimidation of lawyers be guaranteed.
For more information in Spanish:
Aurelia García, la mujer indígena encarcelada en Guerrero por un aborto involuntario (CC News 14 de diciembre de 2022)
Aurelia García Cruceño se queda en prisión preventiva oficiosa, por no tener recursos para llegar a las audiencias (IMDHD 28 de noviembre de 2022)
Aurelia García (IMDHD 25 DE JULIO DE 2022)
Conversatorio sobre el caso de Aurelia (Facebook Red Guerrerense por los derechos de las mujeres 15 de diciembre de 2022)
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