by MADELEINE WATTENBARGER & AXEL HERNANDEZ
The women of the Mazatecas for Freedom collective carried glowing torches along the seashore as they began their march to the federal courthouse in Boca del Río, Veracruz. On September 2, they set up a protest camp in the coastal city to demand an end to the judicial torture the Mexican state has subjected them to for over a decade.
Together with a handful of children and supporters of their cause, they lit torches to show the Mexican state, the judiciary, and local powerbrokers from Eloxochitlán that their fight for freedom is stronger than ever.
Community organization and collective care have undergirded the long struggle for freedom fought by the Mazatecas for Freedom, a collective of Indigenous women from Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, Oaxaca, who are relatives of 21 political prisoners released after years of struggle.
They have been rallying for over a decade against the criminalization of their community. Now, they face intensified persecution and had to move their protest to another state after their cases were assigned to judges in Veracruz.
After securing the release of the last political prisoners from their town in June 2024, the collective announced its intention to fight for the right of return of 14 people displaced from their homes in early 2025. Then, on March 30 of this year, the Oaxacan high court issued over 200 arrest warrants against 56 Mazatec Indigenous people, including some of those previously imprisoned and released.
Eight women, most of them elderly, are now on the list of Eloxochitlán residents facing imprisonment.
The town, whose approximately 4,000 inhabitants grow corn and coffee, has historically been governed through community assembly under usos y costumbres (customary Indigenous practices). Families participating in this autonomous system are face harassment and false accusations for opposing the abuses of former municipal president Manuel Zepeda, who operates a stone and sand mine on the bed and banks of the Xangá Ndá Ge River.
Zepeda’s family has strong ties to the political power structure in Oaxaca, a state in which Indigenous self-government remains strong, despite attempts by political parties and extractive companies to usurp community control.
Zepeda was the first municipal president in Eloxochitlán to have the backing of political parties, unlike previous local leaders whose legitimacy came out of their history of community service. Since the process of criminalization began, his daughter Elisa Zepeda has risen through the ranks of party politics, and now serves as a representative of the Morena Party in Oaxaca’s state congress.
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