Vermont Cynic

Issue date: 11/14/06 Section: Life and Style

Media Credit: Lindsay Tully Senior Hillary Lowenberg shows photographs recounting her traumatic experience in Mexico

During my junior year abroad, I studied in Oaxaca, Mexico for six weeks. On May 1, 2006, protests in major cities around the U.S. took place for immigrant worker rights, and similarly many people in Oaxaca took to the streets to support their friends and family members abroad as well.

Although I had been warned that a foreigner's participation in political demonstration was illegal and carried the risk of deportation, it was important for me to show support for Mexican workers' rights. I knew to separate myself from the march if protestors began taking direct action.

When an anarchist collective spray painted the sides of homes and businesses, police just watched. We learned later that half of the marchers had actually been undercover law enforcement agents.

After the rally, I walked along the streets with my fellow student Andy and our professor. Suddenly, we were stopped by three plain-clothed people. They approached Andy and told him that they had pictures of him defacing private property and that he needed to come with them.

Andy, however, had not even attended the march. We asked them for identification and for proof of the supposed pictures. We tried unsuccessfully to walk away, get onto a passing bus and into a taxi.

One man shoved Andy up against a wall. My professor fought to try to free him. In broken Spanish, I yelled for help as a crowd formed around us but people just watched.

The police arrived, grabbed us and threw us in the back of two marked pick-up trucks. We sped out the city with no idea of what lay ahead.
First we were taken to a holding jail at the Governor's compound on the outskirts of Oaxaca. We were told that we were charged with defacing private property and inciting others to do so. The authorities stripped us of our possessions and locked us in jail. We were repeatedly denied a phone call to someone on the outside.

Luckily, two other detained protestors had managed to call people within our activist network. Word of our situation reached our program coordinator, who was then able to hire a lawyer for us.

We were transferred to two other holding jails where "amigos" brought us food, water and warm clothing out of solidarity. I will always appreciate their support. The guards never gave us food or water.

Continued...

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