translated from Spanish: Demonstrations in Jalisco over the death Giovanni Lopez

The police abuse and violence that has been experienced in Jalisco over the past few days has been impressive. Not only do we mention it because of the dozen videos and photos that have circulated on social media, and which show the authorities beating and attacking (even threatening death) those who took to the streets to demand justice for the death of Giovanni Lopez, also because in recent hours the disappearance of several protesters has been reported.
It all began on June 3rd when, in the midst of the worldwide anger that has led to the death of American George Floyd, in Mexico the case of Giovanni Lopez, a 30-year-old bricklayer who was arrested by municipal policemen of Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos, who did not settle for arresting him for not being held on public roads, was viral. , but they also tortured and murdered him.
Exactly one month after Giovanni Lopez’s death on June 4, several people began a series of mobilizations in Jalisco to demand justice and a halt to the abuse of the state authorities. All this despite the coronavirus quarantine experienced by the entity, where the pandemic still does not reach its critical point according to data from the Ministry of Health.
It was through videos and photographs many of us were able to know the confrontation that protesters had with the police of Jalisco. Several images showed how a person set fire to a policeman, but also the way in which the elements abused their power and suppressed the protesters with beatings, sticks and stones, something that Jalisco Security Coordinator Macedonio Tamez Guajardo justified as an act of defense and even called several protesters “victimizing.”
“I repeat, many activists self-victimize or exaggerate what may have happened to them; The videos I’ve seen about the policemen more seem self-defense than assault on protesters,” Tamez Guajardo said in the Formula Group’s Atando Cabos program, detailing that the authorities acted that way after the protesters refused dialogue.
Governor Enrique Alfaro, meanwhile, said the mobilizations had been orchestrated by ‘basements of power’, organized by the 4T and operating from the CDMX with the intention of destabilizing their government. “This is not how we show the lids, there have been many demonstrations in our city, during our rule we have shown that freedom of expression is respected here,” he said of the arrests that spread that day.
 

Original source in Spanish