Valenzuela appealed to the president for help getting her son out of jail.
A Sinaloa man who was imprisoned 13 years ago on organized crime and weapons charges was released on Friday a day after his journalist mother appealed to President López Obrador to intervene in the case.
Judith Valenzuela appeared at the president’s regular news conference on Thursday and for the second time in two weeks asked for López Obrador’s help in getting her son out of jail.
Rafael Valenzuela remained in prison even though he completed his sentence three years ago due to what López Obrador called “a misinterpretation of the law.”
Addressing the president, Valenzuela said: “He completed his sentence three years ago and even so he’s still detained – you say due to legal questions of the judicial power. The court is closed [and] the investigations of torture [of my son] are still shelved. So I came here, Mr. President, because the truth is I had nowhere else to go.”
López Obrador promptly asked Interior Minister Olga Sánchez whether he had the authority to pardon Valenzeula’s son to secure his release, saying that if he did he would do so immediately.
Sánchez responded that the case was complicated because the man is currently serving a non-existent sentence due to the judicial power’s decision to retry him.
“The case of this young man is a legal tragedy, Mr. President. There is no sentence [that can be pardoned]; if you allow me, we’ll see what alternatives we have,” she said.
López Obrador then told Valenzuela that he would speak with Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar and give her a response on Monday. However, minutes later Sánchez told the president that he could indeed pardon the woman’s son and he quickly committed to doing so.
López Obrador subsequently wrote to Zaldívar, who contacted the judge responsible for the case and arranged for Rafael Valenzuela’s release. He left prison shortly after 3:00 a.m. Friday, the newspaper Reforma reported.
Just a few hours later Valenzuela was back at the National Palace for López Obrador’s Friday news conference.
She thanked the president for his intervention. “Thanks to your political will to do things well, to serve justice, my son is free.”
Visually emotional, Valenzuela added: “I’m now going to Culiacán, I want to be with my son, I want to hug him. … Thank you very much, Mr. President. … A lot of open wounds can still be healed; one of them is mine, I’m going to heal it. … God bless you.”
The legislation was approved unanimously by the Chamber of Deputies.
The lower house of Congress has unanimously approved modifications to the General Law on the Rights of Children and Adolescents to prohibit corporal punishment and humiliation of children.
The law now states that “it is forbidden for the mother, father or any person in the family to use corporal punishment or any type of humiliating treatment and punishment as a form of correction or discipline of children or adolescents.”
It defines corporal punishment as “any act committed against girls, boys and adolescents in which physical force is used, including blows with the hand or with any object, pushing, pinching, biting, pulling hair or ears, forcing them to maintain uncomfortable postures, burns, ingestion of boiling food or other products or any other act that has the object of causing pain or discomfort, even if it is slight.”
In addition to parents and other family members, the ban on corporal punishment and humiliation applies to anyone who has custody or legal guardianship of children as well as people who spend time with minors in educational, sporting, religious, health and social settings.
Verónica Juárez, leader of the Democratic Revolution Party in the lower house, said the law prohibits a range of disciplinary practices that are deeply-rooted in the country.
“Canings, ruler beatings, smacks with flip-flops, smacks on the bottom, pinches, slaps in the face, hair pulling, pulling, chaining [children up], cigarette burns, baths with cold or [very] hot water, throwing [whiteboard] erasers [at students], withholding food, … sending children under the sun, forced labor, lashes with a belt and burns on the hands and feet among other [punishments] … will now be prohibited for people who have custody [of children], teachers and everyone who has children under their care,” she said.
Juárez said the aim of the modified law – which doesn’t stipulate any punishment for adults who inflict physical abuse on minors – is to promote timely public intervention to prevent corporal punishment and humiliation of children.
In extreme cases of violation of the law, parents and guardians could lose custody of their children, she said.
Rosalba Valencia, a Morena party deputy and president of the lower house’s children’s rights committee, said it is regrettable that corporal punishment and humiliating treatment are practices that are widespread across Mexico.
She cited a survey that found that 63% of minors aged between 1 and 14 have suffered psychological and/or physical abuse in their home.
Pilar Ortega, a National Action Party deputy and president of the justice committee, said the reform is timely and necessary. Various studies have proven that corporal punishment and humiliating treatment of minors contribute to the development of a violent society, she said.
“There is no small insult or soft blow; violence is one and the same and when it’s normalized from a young age of course it becomes acceptable conduct for people in the long term.”
The Guadalajara youth who was allegedly beaten by police.
Authorities are seeking two missing Guadalajara police officers in connection with the death of a young man the officers had detained and has since died.
According to accounts by his family, Luis Daniel Córdoba Becerra, 18, was picked up in the Morelos neighborhood by the two officers in their patrol car on November 26. While Córdoba was in the car, the officers beat him and then took him outside the city, where they abandoned him with serious injuries near the highway to Chapala.
A passerby found Córdoba and called authorities. The youth was taken by ambulance to a hospital in the city, where he remained in serious condition until his death on December 6.
The victim sustained several broken bones and kidney damage from the attack and suffered a stroke and a heart attack while hospitalized. His family, who had reported him missing when he did not return home, was reunited with him in the hospital on December 4 once they were able to track down his whereabouts.
The Jalisco Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation into the officers after Córdoba’s death.
Guadalajara Mayor Ismael del Toro said that the city was working with the Attorney General to locate the officers. A warrant was issued for their arrest after they did not report for work once they learned that they were being investigated. Del Toro said the city had delivered all corresponding evidence in the case.
“We understand that the behavior of the officers, viewed in any light, was irregular,” del Toro said. “They did not make a report [of the incident]; there was no communication, not by radio, nor to authorities … that is to say, they acted irregularly.”
While generally supporting the city’s police officers, del Toro also said he was committed to doing everything to punish those responsible and bring justice for Córdoba’s family.
“We cannot permit these types of bad actions in the police department,” he said.
The Mexico-United States land border will remain off-limits to nonessential crossings for another month, until January 21.
The border has been closed due to Covid-19 concerns since March 21, when it was shut down for one month. The closure has been extended every month since then.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Twitter Friday that given the situation with the coronavirus in both countries, it had asked the United States to cooperate in continuing the ban on nonessential crossings until January.
“After reviewing the development of the propagation of Covid-19 and due to the various states found to be at the color orange on the coronavirus stoplight system, we have asked for an extension of one month of the restrictions on nonessential land travel on our common border,” the ministry said. “The restrictions will be maintained under the same terms as since its implementation on March 21.”
Nonessential air-travel between the two countries is still permitted as it has been throughout the land border closure, and crossing by land for reasons of work, business or emergencies is also permitted. Those who cross into either country are potentially subject to health screenings and requests to quarantine.
“This year, holiday celebrations have to be moderated so that in the future we can return to the happiness that characterizes them and so that the family members that we love so much remain with us,” said Edgar Ramírez, an attaché to the Department of Homeland Security at the U.S. Embassy.
“A global pandemic is not the time to go shopping, to take trips or visit your family on the other side of the border,” he said. “And illegal immigration in these times of the pandemic, and putting yourself in the hands of traffickers, is not a solution but a bad decision.”
Mexico has recorded 112,326 deaths due to Covid-19. This week, the U.S. broke a record with 3,202 Covid deaths in a single day, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
Legislation passed Wednesday by the Senate that would force the central bank to buy up all foreign cash that commercial banks can’t trade or sell abroad attracted heavy criticism on Thursday, even from the Bank of México itself.
The bill must still be passed by the lower house of Congress to become law. The ruling Morena party, which has a majority in both houses of Congress, says the objective of the legislation is to ensure that migrants can send remittances home in cash.
It says that an accumulation of foreign cash in Mexico could disrupt foreign currency markets and spur black market trading in which migrants’ family members get fewer pesos for the foreign currency – most commonly US dollars – they are exchanging.
Senator Ricardo Monreal, Morena’s leader in the upper house, said that tourism workers in Mexico – who often receive tips in dollars – would also benefit from the law because banks would more readily accept foreign cash knowing that the Bank of México will buy what they can’t sell themselves.
Some banks don’t exchange foreign currency at all due to concerns about its origin, or only provide the service to their customers, forcing many people to exchange foreign cash elsewhere.
Bank Governor Alejandro Díaz: it could be a first step toward a loss of autonomy.
“A lot of the time they have to go to the tianguis [street market] or market, to the informal dollar exchange options, and a lot of the time they’re surprised that they’ll buy their dollars for [just] 15, 14, 13 or [even] 9 pesos,” Monreal said.
The Bank of México and several other organizations were critical of the legislation that was green-lighted by the Senate, saying that it could force the central bank to buy cash obtained by drug cartels and other criminal organizations via illegal means.
There was also concern that the legislation violates the central bank’s autonomy.
The bank issued a rare public statement on Thursday to outline its opposition to the bill, pointing out that less than 1% of the remittances sent to Mexico by migrants arrive in foreign cash, and that almost all the money is transferred electronically.
Some foreign cash in Mexico comes from tourists and Mexicans who use dollars here – a common practice in some popular destinations and in northern border cities – while there is evidence that cartels send large amounts of ill-gotten greenbacks here from the United States, the world’s largest illicit drugs market.
The Bank of México said that commercial banks were able to trade or return to its country of origin 98% of the US $4.7 billion that entered Mexico in foreign cash between January and September. Only about $100 million was stuck here, it said.
That is the money that Morena would like to see the Bank of México purchase and add to its reserves.
But the central bank said that forcing it to do so could would increase the risk of private banks relaxing their anti-money laundering rules and accepting deposits of ill-gotten cash because they could subsequently offload them in Mexico rather than abroad.
The Bank of México’s relations with its counterparts abroad could be negatively affected and foreign countries could impose restrictions on the entire Mexican banking sector.
“The danger is that the central institution could be sanctioned by foreign authorities which, among other actions, could include a prohibition on carrying out transactions with counterparts abroad as well as the freezing and even confiscation of international reserves,” Bank of México Governor Alejandro Díaz de León said in a radio interview.
The central bank said in its statement that the legislation would cause “substantial risks [to] and impacts” on its work and also expressed concern that the law could be the first step toward a loss of the autonomy it was granted in 1994. Prior to that year, the bank was at the whim of the president of the day.
Díaz de León said that if the law passes, the Bank of México could challenge it in the Supreme Court.
“The option is open,” he said before adding that resolution via dialogue was preferred. “I would like to open the opportunity of dialogue in the Chamber of Deputies in order to find better alternatives.”
Among the other organizations that criticized the government’s legislation were the Mexican Institute of Finance Executives (IMEF) and the rating agency HR Ratings.
“Cash operations entail the possibility that resources of illicit origin are incorporated in the circuit of foreign cash managed by the financial system,” the IMEF said, adding that the risk will be transferred to the Bank of México if it is forced to buy overseas currency from private banks.
“That could lead to sanctions at the international level that inhibit the foreign currency operations of the central bank,” it said.
HR Ratings said that “the danger” is that the legislation could encourage money laundering. “That is a risk. … It could complicate relations with other countries, especially the United States.”
Tractor-trailers arrived in Puebla city with free vegetables for residents.
A fugitive petroleum-theft gang leader thumbed his nose at the law and made a public appearance in two low-income Puebla neighborhoods Tuesday night, distributing 80 tonnes of fresh vegetables to residents who lined up for blocks to receive them.
Antonio Valente “El Toñin” Martínez Fuentes, wanted by authorities, appeared in the two neighborhoods and subsequently posted videos of himself addressing residents standing in line with bags to accept the food.
“My name is Antonio Valente Martínez Fuentes,” one video showed him telling the crowds. “I’m charged with touching the hearts for whom God gathers much food, many vegetables, so that it can arrive in your sacred hands, friends … I hope that the distribution of vegetables I am giving you serves you well.”
Martínez said his motive was to help residents of the two neighborhoods during the economic struggles of the coronavirus pandemic. He also told the crowds to follow his Facebook account, where he promised to announce further deliveries.
Although Puebla Governor Miguel Barbosa has claimed that authorities are on Martínez’s trail, the videos showed police cars guarding the deliveries and city auxiliary police thanking Martínez for donations they said he had made to shelters and public hospitals. In one video, crowds waiting in line waved at those recording them, jovially chatting and at one point cheering. Unseen organizers could also be heard off-camera urging the crowds to social distance.
Martínez delivered the food to the Agua Santa and San Ramón neighborhoods where residents live in government housing.
In the last few days, other photos and videos have appeared online showing similar scenarios at other points in the city, including Cuautlancingo, located in the capital’s metropolitan area, as well as in other municipalities around the state, including Quecholac, located in central Puebla.
Barbosa said later that Martínez has political aspirations.
Morena Deputy Sergio Pérez and marijuana activists plant some pot outside the federal Congress on Thursday in support of legalization.
The Supreme Court (SCJN) on Thursday granted an extension to the lower house of Congress to debate the recreational use of marijuana.
The court, which ruled last year that laws prohibiting the use of marijuana are unconstitutional, had set a December 15 limit for approval after extending previous deadlines.
Lower house lawmakers requested an extension on the grounds that the bill was complex and time was limited.
Dulce María Sauri, an Institutional Revolutionary Party deputy and president of the lower house, said in a letter to the court’s chief justice that the Chamber of Deputies has an obligation to listen to “all interested voices” on the legalization subject. She also said that the Congress must guarantee the opportunity for “wide debate” among lawmakers.
“Due to the complexity of the issue … extending the period granted [for legalization] to the next ordinary sitting period is courteously requested,” Sauri wrote.
With the court’s approval, the Chamber of Deputies will now have until the end of their first 2021 sitting period in late April to make the recreational use of marijuana legal.
If deputies fail to do so, the SCJN could formally declare that all laws prohibiting the plant’s recreational use are unconstitutional.
Once recreational use is approved – considered inevitable because of the court’s 2019 ruling and support for legalization from the ruling Morena party – Mexico will become the world’s largest legal marijuana market.
The bill passed by the Senate allows the possession of up to 28 grams of marijuana by adults but they would be prohibited from smoking in front of children.
People would be permitted to grow up to six plants at home and a licensing system for large-scale production and sale would be established.
In San Luis Potosí, romance has suffered under the coronavirus.
Divorces in San Luis Potosi have shot up by 50% in 2020 compared to last year, according to a state justice official, suggesting the increase might be due to couples spending more time with each other thanks to coronavirus stay-at-home measures.
Magistrate Olga Regina García López said 2,005 divorcios incausados — or divorces in which only one member of the couple need request a divorce — have been filed in the state this year.
She theorized that the coronavirus is a contributing factor, saying that people are spending more time at home. She also cited the reported pandemic-related increase in domestic violence this year as a likely factor.
It’s possible that the number of divorces will increase even more in 2021, as the state is planning to unveil a system for granting online divorces next week. The new procedure would only be allowed for uncontested separations.
Couples would be able to do all proceedings remotely instead of having to appear in person before a judge.
The new module is part of an overall initiative in the state to create online options for a variety of noncriminal legal proceedings in family and labor law and more, García said. The digital system will also speed up legal notification processes in some matters, she said.
In the case of online divorce, a couple would be able to sign their legal paperwork, digitize it and send it to the courts. In certain cases, the new system could allow a divorce to happen within two or three weeks, García said.
The president points to Mexico's low ranking on a chart showing international minimum wages.
President López Obrador said Thursday that the government is proposing an increase of at least 15% to the minimum wage.
The daily minimum wage is currently 123.2 pesos (US $6.15) in most of the country and 185.6 pesos in the northern border region. If the government’s proposed hike is approved, the daily minimum would increase to 141.7 pesos (US $7.10) on January 1.
“A 15% increase is what we’re proposing, at least,” López Obrador said before referring to a graphic that showed that Mexico would nevertheless still have one of the lowest minimum wages in the world.
The National Minimum Wage Commission, made up of government officials, private sector representatives and union leaders, will ultimately decide the size of the increase. Mexico has traditionally kept any hikes just above the inflation rate to help keep costs down for companies that export to the United States.
The president said that it became “dogma” under past neoliberal governments that increasing the minimum wage would cause inflation and therefore they allowed it to stagnate.
However, he asserted that his administration’s hikes – 16% last year and 20% in 2020 – haven’t caused inflation.
(Indeed, inflation has decreased by more than 1% in the first two years of the government and was up just 3.33% in November compared to a year earlier.)
López Obrador added that the minimum wage has to keep increasing gradually because it is an “embarrassment” at its current level.
He said Wednesday that Mexico had the lowest minimum wage in Latin America and that it has to be increased to recover people’s purchasing power.
“It’s just and necessary that the minimum salary increase as much as possible because it deteriorated a lot in the whole neoliberal period,” López Obrador said, referring to the 36 years before he took office.
The government’s proposed 15% increase is above that suggested by Mexican Employers Federation president Gustavo de Hoyos. He said Monday that that the 2021 minimum wage should be fixed between 128.1 and 135.8 pesos per day, which would be an increase in the range of just 4% to 10%.
In Mexico, even dogs are fans of cohetes. Joseph Sorrentino
When I complain to friends back in the U.S. about cohetes, the bottle rockets that are a staple of Mexican celebrations — and I’ll freely admit that I complain way too often, their typical response is, “You know, we have bottle rockets here too.”
It usually comes with a sigh, and I can picture them shrugging. But what passes for bottle rockets in the U.S. are these dinky, one- or two-inch-long glorified firecrackers that go “pop” when they explode. Mexicans have large, military-grade rockets that explode with a concussive boom.
I lived in Mexico for months before I could stop flinching when they went off, which in San Gregorio Atlapulco, a town in Xochimilco, Mexico City, can be two or three times a week, or sometimes more often. A barrage can last anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. We can thank, or curse, the Spaniards for bringing cohetes to Mexico.
The first recorded use of cohetes in Spain was in 1554 at the wedding of Philip II of Spain and Maria Tudor of England. That apparently set the stage for their use in other celebrations. They were readily accepted in Mexico.
“It is a tradition from the colonial period, brought from Spain,” said Javier Márquez Juárez, who has written extensively about the history of San Gregorio. “They represent lightning. Because cohetes climb to the sky, they are associated with rain and Tlaloc, the god of rain.”
At the Fiesta de San Gregorio, participants ask for a good rainy season.
The Fiesta de San Gregorio, a celebration of the pueblo’s patron saint, is in March, which coincides with the beginning of the rainy season, a critical time for agriculture in Mexico.
“Since rain is so important, we light many, many cohetes during that fiesta,” said Márquez.
Jozafath Abad has overseen the salva, the volley that happens at the beginning of the fiesta, for seven years.
“It is a tradition from our ancestors,” he said, “from father to father. It is to celebrate the fiesta, the birthday of our patron saint, to give thanks to him. It is also to petition for rain so that there will be a good harvest of maíz [corn]. Cohetes bring rain.”
There are a couple of salvas during the event, the largest beginning around 6 a.m. and continuing for about an hour.
Some people place cohetes in a thin metal tube and light them but the preferred method is to hold it gently between your thumb and index finger, placing a lit cigarette to the fuse and letting it go when it catches. The fingers of people using this method are burned and blackened by the sparks flying off the fuse. I thought it best not to try this. To be honest, I thought it best not to try any method for lighting them. I value my fingers.
The preferred method of holding the bottle rockets is between one’s fingers.
They are also frequently used in what’s known as religión popular (popular religion).
“Cohetes are used to give thanks to a particular saint or virgin,” said María Teresa Contreras González, who sells fireworks. “To venerate the saint, to give a blessing.”
They’re also used three times at the beginning of pilgrimages.
“The first cohete announces that the pilgrimage is about to start,” said Raúl Hernández Serralde, who has organized pilgrimages to Chalma in México state. “The second is to tell people to come now, and the third is to show the route.” They’re also set off during the pilgrimage to continue announcing the route.
Smoke from the cohetes is also symbolic. According to an article by María del Carmen Vázquez Mantecón, it represents a connection between humans and gods. She also points out the close connection they have with the agricultural cycle and the petitioning for rain.
Sometimes it seems like there’s always a reason to light them. In addition to a saint’s feast day and pilgrimages, they’re used during funeral processions, when the first stone is laid for a home and also when the last one is in place. You’ll hear them during quinceañeras and velaciones, the ceremonies that occur the night before major fiestas. They’re present at recorridos, religious processions that travel through San Gregorio, and posadas, Christmas events that take place December 16–25.
Cohetes are part of many Mexican occasions, from birthdays to funerals.
When asked why cohetes are so often a part of celebrations, Hernández smiled. “They are a symbol of joy,” he said.
Aurelia Olivos Navarette has gone on dozens of pilgrimages and recorridos and, as a resident of San Gregorio, is quite familiar with cohetes.
“Sometimes they bother me,” she admitted, “but they are very pretty because it means there is a fiesta or some other event.”
When I hear cohetes, which is still a few times a week in San Gregorio, and feel myself getting annoyed, I remind myself that they signify joy, that somewhere someone is having a celebration. It’s kind of hard to get upset about that.
Joseph Sorrentino is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
