The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions announced in Geneva that it will review the arrests of followers of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) in Mexico. On the eve of leaving for the Working Group's session in Geneva, president of the Center for the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples (CEDHAPI), Maurilio Santiago Reyes, told a press conference in Oaxaca City, "The UN will come to realize...that activists were detained arbitrarily, beaten and tortured physically and psychologically." (La Jornada, Sept. 10) The state of Oaxaca has agreed to create a special fund to indemnify victims of torture and illegal arrest. The move was taken in response to Recommendation 15/2007 issued by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH). (La Jornada, Sept. 12)

The Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) claimed responsibility for Sept. 10 attacks on Pemex oil pipelines in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz. Authorities say an inscription in red on a section of pipeline read: "They were taken alive, we want them alive—EPR-PDPR." This seems to be a reference to recently "disappeared" militants associated with the Popular Democratic Revolutionary Party (PDPR), the EPR's political wing.

Some 10,000 members of the Section 22 teachers union and the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) marched in Oaxaca City Sept. 1 to demonstrate their rejection of Mexico's President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, the same day he delivered his first address to Congress. Another 7,000 Oaxacans gathered in Mexico City's Plaza de la Constitución for a "contrainforme," a public speak-out conceived as a corrective to Calderón's address. (La Jornada, Sept. 2)

On Aug. 30 thousands of workers marched in Mexico City from the Angel of Independence to the central plaza, the Zocalo, to protest what they called the "anti-union and anti-worker" policies of President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, of the center-right National Action Party (PAN). The organizers, the National Workers Union (UNT) and the Mexican Union Front (FSM), timed the march to precede Calderon's first state of the union report, to be delivered on Sept. 2. Police estimated the crowd at 20,000; organizers put attendance at 50,000. Despite several successful demonstrations, the UNT and FSM have repeatedly failed in their efforts to call a national strike against the government's plans for more privatization and other neoliberal economic policies.

A Mexican federal judge in Chiapas sentenced 18 Tzotzil Maya men to 26 years in prison Aug. 28 on homicide and weapons charges for having participated in the massacre of 45 unarmed Tzotzils at the hamlet of Acteal on Dec. 22, 1997. They were also ordered to pay a total of 800,000 pesos (approx. $800) in damages. Of 87 followers of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) detained in Chenalhó municipality in the aftermath of the massacre, 79 remain imprisoned. The longest sentence, 40 years, was brought against Alfredo Hernández Ruiz. (La Jornada, Sept. 2)

Members of the "Other Campaign" activist network marched in Mexico City Aug. 26 in protest of the recent evictions of campesino communities from the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in the conflicted southern state of Chiapas. (Expreso Chiapas, Aug. 27) On Aug. 31, Amnesty International issued a statement calling for an "immediate" suspension of evictions from the reserve. The statement expressed concern about the health conditions at the shelter in La Trinitaria where the expelled campesinos—including two pregnant women—are being held. The organization also expressed concern about the six arrested in the evictions, calling for their release and for transparency in the cases against them. (La Jornada, Sept. 2)

Juan Carlos "El Konan" García Cruz, a member of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) was sentenced to three years in prison by a Mexican federal court in Oaxaca City Aug. 26 on arms possession charges. While several APPO supporters remain behind bars pending charges, García Cruz is the first to be formally sentenced. APPO legal spokesman Gilberto Hernández Santiago called the sentence "inadmissible," saying that García Cruz had been illegally arrested by unaccountable plainclothes paramilitary forces, that he had been tortured, and the arms "planted" on him. (La Jornada, Aug. 28)

State police in Guerrero, Mexico, announced they had discovered a cache of 14 firearms with home-made bombs and camo uniforms hidden in a corn warehouse (bodega de maiz) in the community of Chamacua de Michelle, Coyuca de Catalán municipality. Authorities said insignia identified the cache as belonging to the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI). One resident, Arturo Duque Alvarado, was detained on charges of belonging to the guerilla organization. (Cronica de Hoy, Aug. 27; La Jornada, Aug. 26) Meanwhile in Santiago Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca, soldiers of the 47th Infantry Battalion carried out searches in districts under the control of the Democratic Civic Union of Barrios and Colonias (Ucidebac), on suspicion that the neighborhood organization is collaborating with armed groups. Ucidebac leader Librado Baños Rodríguez accused soldiers of menacing residents at gunpoint. (La Jornada, Aug. 29)