The Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center joined the call for justice for Keren Selsy Ordoñez, a victim of torture and gender-based discrimination by federal and state police, arbitrarily detained in 2015 and forced to blame herself for a kidnapping she did not commit.
According to the Prodh Center, at the time of her arrest, Keren was in the company of her one-month-old daughter, who remained with her while state agents subjected her to beatings, suffocation and threatened to harm her baby and even disappear her if she did not sign a fabricated statement.
Given this panorama, and after a federal judge handed down a sentence of 50 years in prison, the Prodh Center decided to assume the integral defense and representation of Keren, a process that remains open and in which multiple human rights violations and irregularities have already been identified during his process.
“Keren’s case is representative of the discriminatory use of the penal system against women, when it is not applied with a gender perspective, ignoring the circumstances of vulnerability and violence in which they find themselves before and during detention and the process,” the Center said in a statement.
➡️ #Comunicado
We demand #JusticiaParaKeren, who was arrested in 2015 for a crime she did not commit, along with her one-month-old daughter in her arms, and who is a survivor of torture and a victim of gender discrimination#RompiendoElSilencio
👉https://t.co/k9dO0r8vFw pic.twitter.com/vVy3KS9cFe
— Centro Prodh (@CentroProdh) November 14, 2022
Read: CDMX prosecutor’s office will call victims and former police officers to testify for acts of torture in the Dirty War
The Keren case, seven years without justice
The events occurred on December 11, 2015 when, despite continuing to convalesce after a life-threatening childbirth, Keren left her home to meet her ex-partner to request resources for the maintenance of her daughter, since both she and her family lived in a context of poverty and economic inequality and did not have any support from the father of the baby.
“The address was a couple of blocks from where she lived. While waiting for him at the entrance of the house, vehicles of the Federal Police and Ministerial Police of Tlaxcala arrived at the place. The armed agents arrested Keren’s ex-partner, another man who was in the place, her and her baby, “says the Prodh Center.
It was at that moment that the agents of the State put both Keren and her daughter in an official vehicle, where they subjected her to beatings, suffocation and threatened to harm the baby and even disappear her, “referring to the fact that, since she did not yet have a birth certificate, no one would notice her absence.”
Thus, Keren and her baby spent at least 7 hours incommunicado, time in which she was questioned about a kidnapping that occurred inside the house where her ex-partner was, forcing her to sign a fabricated statement in which she acknowledged having participated in the kidnapping, performing care work.
Hours later, the ministerial authorities handed the baby over to the state DIF, without giving prior notice to any relative. For 12 days, Keren’s daughter stayed away from her family, until the maternal grandmother managed to get the authorities to hand her over to her.
Photo: Pixabay
However, Keren’s luck did not improve. Although the father of her daughter was also arrested and prosecuted along with Keren for the same kidnapping, he regained his freedom in 2019, after serving a five-year prison sentence.
In contrast, on November 20, 2019, the Criminal Court of the Judicial District of Sánchez Piedras, in Apizaco, Tlaxcala issued a conviction against Keren, imposing a prison sentence of 50 years, for a crime he did not commit.
Finally, on September 27, 2021, a Collegiate Court granted an amparo to Keren considering that procedural rights had been violated and ordered to reinstate the procedure until the investigation stage. For this reason, Centro Prodh assumed its legal representation.
“Today we demand, #JusticiaParaKeren so that he can find his freedom. She has faced this process with resilience and resistance, with the aim of achieving justice, that impunity is reversed and that she can return to her family and her daughter, who is already seven years old.”
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