"International Alert on the Conviction of Saúl Rosales Meléndez, Nahua Forest Defender in Tlaxcala", 14 March 2024

...Nahua defender Saúl Rosales Meléndez was found guilty of murder for a lynching in which he did not participate and the Tlaxcala State Attorney General’s Office is seeking a sentence of 50 years in prison, in the sentence to be issued today, March 8, reported Front Line Defenders (FLD).

Rosales Meléndez was arrested along with Nahua defender Raymundo Cahuantzi on July 14, 2022. Since that day, both have been held without a sentence in the Tlaxcala State Social Reinsertion Center (Centro de Reinserción Social del Estado de Tlaxcala).

At the time of their arrest, Saúl Rosales was president of the community of San Pedro Tacuapan and Raymundo was a traditional Tiaxca authority, and both were involved in the work of caring for the forest and against illegal logging and the plundering of the diversity of flora, fauna and fungus in the Matlalcuéyetl, also known as La Malinche.

On March 8 “years of unjust sentencing for Saul will be dictated”, affirms the Fray Julian Garces Center. From then on “the family and the community will have to define the path of the struggle to achieve his just liberation”. Meanwhile, “the forest continues to die, the river continues to be polluted by industries, more people die from pollution, women are raped and sexually exploited, we are living a crisis because of the garbage… but in the eyes of the government nothing happens,” laments the human rights center based in Tlaxcala...