Prize Fighters: Enviros Worldwide Call for Release of Two Mexican Activists, Mark Hertsgaard, Grist
Forty-five of the world's most prominent environmentalists have called for the immediate release of Mexican colleagues Rodolfo Montiel Flores and Teodoro Cabrera Garcia, who have been jailed and tortured after blocking logging operations by the multinational Boise Cascade in the southern state of Guerrero. Writing in the environmental webzine Grist, Mark Hertsgaard reports, '[T]he activists -- all previous winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize -- wrote to Mexico's president-elect Vicente Fox on July 14 to request his intervention in the case.' Montiel and Cabrera, who were arrested in May 1999 after organizing their neighbors to fight the logging operation, claim they were tortured and forced to sign confessions of drug trafficking. Amnesty and International and the Sierra Club have joined in demanding their release. -- LUGo there>>