An update on the sentencing of anarchist prisoner Jorge “Yorch” Esquivel and a call for action and solidarity
Urgent call for solidarity!
On Monday, June 3, 2024, one day after the elections and five days from marking 18 months of being kidnapped in the Reclusorio Oriente as part of the set up against the Okupache squat, our compañero was notified that the judge had sentenced him to seven years and six months in prison. He has three days to appeal the decision.
Seven years and six months of an absurd sentence when up until now all the evidence presented, both by his defense as well as the prosecution, has shown that there exists no proof whatsoever to support the fabricated and totally false charges against him. However, it is clear to us yet again that there is a concerted effort directed against our compañero to keep him locked up as long as possible, given that this is a key part of the campaign by UNAM authorities to discredit Okupache in order to justify and gain sympathy for an eventual eviction of the autonomous space of self-managed work that has existed and resisted for almost a quarter of a century.
We issue an urgent international call to organize agitation and solidarity with Yorch to demand the repeal of his sentence and for his immediate freedom.
Let’s rip our compañero from the claws of this corrupt and unaccountable State that jails, disappears, and kills those who fight!
Fire to the prisons!
Yorch on the street!
Okupa Che: “Yorch to the Streets”
Statement from the Okupa Che regarding the recent conviction and sentence of anarchist prisoner Jorge “Yorch” Esquivel
On the morning of June 3, the Fifth District Federal Court in Mexico City dictated a sentence of seven years and six months in prison against our compa Jorge “Yorch” Esquivel.
Just a few hours following the media show they call elections, the state decided that it was a good moment to sentence him, after already holding him in prison for nearly 18 months.
It is clear that the set up against Yorch is directly related to the change in the governmental administration, including the change in the rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). As we know, to speak of the eviction of the Okupa Che is a campaign talking point that cannot be missed. Furthermore, it is constantly used to divert attention when university authorities are questioned by the community. The incompetence and fascism of the UNAM is becoming ever more visible, even to the proudest university students.
It is obvious that we are a menace to the university. For them, it is more important to eliminate the threat posed by a space that doesn’t depend on any institution or political party, than to attend to the demands of their students and their “community” whom the same authorities beat, expel, detain, discriminate against, harass, rape, revictimize, and kill (classic move of the institutions).
It is also clear that this set up against Yorch is another attack on Okupa Che and those that organize in the space. The attacks have taken a variety of forms: harassment; persecution; media attacks; internet, radio, and television broadcasts that speak of the space as a problem of national security; espionage on part of the UNAM, the different police, and pseudo intelligence agencies; cutting off the water and electricity in the space; hacking of electronic devices; creation of false posters with names and photos accusing us of carrying arms and explosives supposedly pertaining to this or that organization; or whatever other tactics they come up with. These attacks, which have continued for the 24 years that the space has existed, have not been and will not be sufficient to destroy the autonomous, self-organized, and horizontal organization of the Okupa Che and of the different spaces/collectives/communities/individuals scattered around the world, where the message of resistance is also clear and direct:
We will not take one step back!
Regarding Yorch’s case, we will continue fighting, his legal defense who will exhaust all the different resources of this dirty game, and from this side of the bars, from the Okupa Che, and from the different latitudes and hearts willing to fight for his freedom…
End the set up!
Freedom for our compañero Jorge Esquivel!
Occupy and resist!
Not one step back in the face of whatever repression attempt!
No aggression without a response!
Yorch to the streets!
