Mexico: Letter from the Political Prisoner Arnulfo García Santos

We hereby share an unofficial translation of a letter shared in Periódico Mural from Mexico.

This section is designed to give voice to the denunciations, information, and analysis of unions, organizations, and popular sectors that fight against the old State. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the point of view of Periódico Mural.

Letter from Political Prisoner Arnulfo García Santos

To my comrades in the Current of the People Red Sun and my displaced Triqui comrades from San Miguel Copala, Oaxaca.

Dear comrades in struggle, I write this letter to you from the Miahuatlán de Porfirio Díaz prison in Oaxaca, where I have been held since July 4, 2024.

Through this letter, I want to inform you of the following:

On Sunday, December 21 of this year, my private defender, Attorney Mandarín, visited me in prison to deliver two medications for my eyes, two blankets, and other personal items that she informed me were purchased with the solidarity of you, comrades.

I want to thank you for the solidarity you have shown me in these difficult moments, as you know that I have already lost 95% of my vision and now also part of my ability to take care of myself. I now have to use a cane as a walking stick and rely on other solidary prisoners to perform some activities, such as writing this letter. In my current state, I am unable to work or generate any income, and the lack of quality and specialized medical attention is further affecting my health.

My lawyer told me that to gather the resources and buy what I need, Sol Rojo and the Se-Solidaria organization have launched a campaign among the people, and the people have responded very well. This moves me a lot and fills me with emotion because, although I am caged and separated from you by the bourgeois State, I hear your voices and feel your hands squeezing mine. I thank you very much for this solidarity, because, as always, we support each other, comrades, when one of us is in a situation of danger or need, as indigenous peoples and the working class have our union and that’s where our strength lies.

I also want to take this opportunity to denounce that my lawyer had many difficulties visiting me; she told me that they gave her a thousand pretexts and wanted to treat her like an ordinary visitor, they wanted to humiliate and strip her to enter the prison, and I know that no lawyer can be treated like that. The bourgeois State has already sentenced me, and now it wants to take revenge on the Attorney, who is also a comrade because her organization, like ours, defends the poor. But the Attorney did not back down from the police or the prison and complained and defended her rights and mine, and thus she managed to enter the prison with the medications and personal items that you, with great effort, managed to buy for me. However, the bourgeois State continues to exercise oppression against me, as despite the fact that the items purchased were authorized to enter the prison through the lawyers’ efforts, they were provided to me with force and separately, as the medications and a sweater were delivered to me on Sunday night, December 21. When I asked about the other items that my lawyer had delivered for me at the customs, they only responded that they were checking them. The next day, I asked again about my items, and again I did not receive a response, so I tried to look for the Director and the Social Worker to know why they were not delivering my items that had already been authorized and accepted at customs.

In the dormitory where I am, there is a checkpoint that only allows me to pass three times a day; this restriction is only applied to me, so I only use it to check my glucose, buy food, and if I’m lucky, I manage to communicate with my lawyer to inform her about my health.

My other items were not delivered until Tuesday, the 23rd. This form of oppression by the bourgeois State greatly affects my health, but it does not break my spirit, comrades.

I know that I am a political prisoner for defending the rights of the displaced Triqui people from San Miguel Copala; I am imprisoned for a crime I did not commit and paying a punishment ordered by the paramilitaries of MULT-Morena who control the Triqui region with violence and death. And I know that these words may cost me again, but I cannot and do not want to remain silent.

Although sometimes I feel that I will not be able to get out of this prison where the bourgeois State has decided to confine me, I always try to cheer myself up with the example of other comrades who have also been in prison for our ideals, as the Attorney once said, “being a SolRojista leads you to know the prison.” She was right because the enemies of the people see us as a threat and prefer to cage us to try to silence us.

Today, I am in prison, paying for something I do not owe, but I am in prison sure of my innocence and that our struggle is just.

Arnulfo García Santos

Political prisoner in Miahuatlán de Profirio Díaz prison, Oaxaca

December 26, 2026