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Lydia Cacho has been attacked and harassed repeatedly MEXICO since she published Los Demonios del Edén, which docu- ments allegations that powerful businessmen had been Ribeiro involved in & trafficking. A well-known journalist threatened businessman is in prison facing serious criminal charges as a result of the book’s allegations. In December 2005, she was arrested in Cancún and taken to Puebla City to face defamation charges filed by another businessman in connection with publication of the book. She says that during the 20-hour drive the police officers threatened her with sexual assault and other ill-treatment and said they would make her “disappear”. In Puebla she was held for several hours, and then released on bail to await trial. Eventually she was acquitted.

In 2007, a few days after she gave evidence in the trial © AI of one of the businessmen identified in her book, a car carrying Ms Cacho was tampered with in an apparent is urging improved protection attempt to cause a fatal accident. She has since received for human rights activist & journalist Lydia Cacho occasional police escorts in response to threats. Ribeiro. Her home and offices in Cancún have been photographed and watched by armed men frequently, In November 2007, in a ruling that caused a public outcry, while her life has been threatened in online messages. Mexico’s Supreme Court concluded that, although there had been “irregularities” in her 2005 detention, Lydia She has been harassed, threatened and detained by Cacho had not suffered serious human rights violations. police over the years for her work exposing child In March 2009, however, the National Human Rights pornography & prostitution. Lydia Cacho was the Commission concluded that she had suffered physical 2007 winner of AIUSA’s Award for and psychological ill-treatment at the hands of the police defenders of women’s and children’s rights. who detained her.

Please call on the Minister of Justice to order a full review of the protection provided for Lydia Cacho Ribeiro, in order to guarantee her safety, in accordance with her wishes; and call for a full, impartial and prompt investigation into the threats that she has received.

Lic. Fernando Francisco Gómez-Mont Urueta Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan Casamitjana Secretaría de Gobernación Embassy of Mexico Bucareli 99, 1er. piso 1911 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Col. Juárez, Del. Cuauhtémoc Washington DC 20006 México D.F., C.P.06600 MEXICO Fax: 202 728 1698 E-mail: [email protected] Fax: 011 52 55 5093 3414 E-mail: [email protected]

Salutation: Dear Minister Airmail postage abroad: 98¢ Salutation: Your Excellency from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article I All human beings are born free and equal in dig- nity and rights. They are endowed with reason and Amnesty International conscience . . . focuses on preventing and ending Article 3 grave abuses of the rights Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the secu- to physical & mental integrity, rity of person. freedom of conscience Article 19 & expression, Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold and freedom from , opinions without interference and to seek, receive while promoting all human rights. and impart information & ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Article 27 Our particular concern during Banned Books . . . Everyone has the right freely to participate Week is to draw attention to writers, editors, in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the librarians, publishers and readers who suffer hu- arts and to share in scientific advancement and its man rights violations because of their work. benefits. . . .

Human reason is beautiful and invincible. No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books, No sentence of banishment can prevail against it. It puts what should be above things as they are.

Czeslaw Milosz (from “Incantation”)

Banned Books Week 2009 IMPORTANT NOTES: Please do not attempt to write directly to a prisoner; in some countries there might be reprisals. Experience shows that the rarity of replies from governments does not mean our letters are being ignored. If someone does receive a reply, please send a copy to the AI address on the other side (top) of this page.