The deepest spot in the caves

This Mexican political prisoner writes about his experience of maximum security prison in Mexico. Dedicated to Mumia Abu-Jamal and read in part at the demonstration before the United States Embassy in Mexico City on December 9, 2008.


There are beings who are kept apart from other people for one reason or other, like the nymph Echo who was confined to the depths of the caves and ravines, where no one could see her, no one could hear her, except when she was interrogated, thus concealing the world of her existence.

This is mythology, it's true, but some men and women of flesh and blood are also kept apart from people and excluded from the world, and to this end, the deepest parts of the caves are fashioned out of iron and concrete, parts so deep that very few people can even see what's down there, so deep that the Sun can't reach that far, so deep that many don't even know these parts exist or where they are located.

These places are the maximum security prisons, where, right next to hardened criminals unable to lead a more or less normal life or develop relatively healthy relationships, other people are confined who are not only able to do all this, but who fight for the betterment of society and relations between human beings, for justice to be real, for ethics to no longer be relegated to speeches and books, and for freedom and human rights to be the true heritage of everyone.

The former are condemned for victimizing society, and the latter for being its conscience.

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