Participants of the World Social Forum denounced on Wednesday that there were two guests who could not attend the event, which is held in Mexico City, because they were deported by Mexican authorities.
Last Sunday, they reported that Keila Simpson, a trans woman human rights defender from Brazil, was detained and held incommunicado in the immigration station located at the International Airport of Mexico City (AICM), for approximately 10 hours, to finally be returned on a flight to her country.
We tell you: Incommunicado migration and deportation of trans women from Brazil who would speak at a forum in Mexico City; activists denounce discrimination
However, she was not the only guest deported from the AICM. In April, the Kurdish academic Erol Polat tried to enter Mexico, where he would have a stay of two months, in which he would give lectures at universities and be part of the speakers of the World Social Forum.
Through a video broadcast at a press conference organized by attendees of the World Social Forum, the academic explained that at the AICM customs they asked for his passport and the documents that accredited his invitation to various events in Mexico, took photographs and detained him along with other people of different nationalities. After about 10 hours, he was informed that he would be deported to Brazil.
“They didn’t explain anything to us, nor did they give us our passport, nor did they allow us to talk to anyone. The documents were returned to us until we arrived in Brazil,” he said.
At the conference they also broadcast a video in which Keila Simpson spoke about what happened on Sunday, when she tried to enter Mexico. He lamented that the “state bureaucracy” prevented him from being present at the World Social Forum, but said that did not stop his virtual participation.
“It’s important to say that what happened didn’t affect me at all, I’m here full, as if I were there. No matter how many obstacles pass in our way, we will always be resisting in a much higher and more positive way,” he said.
Simpson said that this experience will be used by the organizations that accompany the defense of human rights to build projects that make visible and combat the obstacles faced by people in transit situations, such as migrants, tourists and asylum seekers, as well as to raise awareness about racial discrimination and against the LGBTIQA + population.
Read also: LGBTTTI+ coalition promotes proposal for 3% of public sector places to be for trans people
The organizations Juventudes Trans, Balance, Abong, ABGLT and the Movimento Nacional de Direitos Humanos, which were present at the conference, said that they continue to wait for the Mexican authorities to apologize to Keila Simpson and accept that they work together with the INM to sensitize them on issues of discrimination.
This, because they accuse that the immigration authorities use discretionary criteria, allegedly racist, to determine which people do not meet the “tourist profile” to enter Mexico, even when they have documents that prove that they have lodgings, tickets and invitations to events.
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