Pedro Alvarado Delgado is a human rights defender with the non-governmental human rights organisation, the Annunciation Human Rights Committee (Sector Ajusco) of the Pastoral Social Commission. On the morning of 4 May 2006, Pedro was taking pictures and recording the police operation in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico State. As police entered the town at 6.30am he was arbitrarily arrested. According to his testimony, despite protesting that he was a human rights observer, police responded "we are going to f**k you up with all your rights" - "te vamos a chingar a tu put madre con todos tus derechos". He was beaten in the head repeatedly and kicked to the ground where he was beaten and threatened with death.

"I want to describe the events of the day May 4th, 2006, which I consider criminal acts and violations of human rights.

That day, at 6 o’clock in the morning, I was, in my role of human rights defender and promoter, on Reyes Lechería Road, at the corner with Fresno St, in front of the corner corresponding to the main entrance of San Salvador Atenco, watching how the militarised police force were entering the town and what they were doing. At approximately 6:30 am, I was detained by the police with all the violence possible, I was brutally assaulted, the policemen leaped on me, stole my watch, my wallet with 3 thousand pesos, my voter ID, my driving license from Distrito Federal, a camera, a video camera and a notebook and pen. From the very moment I was detained, they covered my head, threw me on the ground, kicked me, attacked me with their fists and truncheons, and threatened me saying they were going to kill me.

I was barely able to tell them that I belonged to the human rights movement, and they answered: “I’m going to screw your mother with all your human rights”, and every time I mentioned human rights they tortured me even more. They took off my training shoes and, with my hands tied behind my back and lying on my stomach, they threw me into an open pick-up truck. When I was there, they kept on kicking me in the back of my neck with their boots, and continued to threaten me with killing my family. They started the engine of the truck and moved on for approximately 200 meters.

They took me out, punching and threatening me, and they got me into a bus, by the front door, and pushed me into the rear part of the bus, where other two people were lying on their stomachs and bleeding profusely. They threw me onto the floor and beat me with their truncheons in my back, legs and arms, and kept on threatening me that they were going to kill me.

In the meanwhile, they got more people, men and women, into the bus, which were piled up on the floor. Already, it could be heard that they were insulting the women, they said they were going to rape them. They groped them, touched and beat them, they tore their clothes and I could hear groaning, crying, pain, a lot of pain, from men and women. Before the engine of the bus was started, I heard a policeman shouting that they should count the people, and that they should ask their names. I heard them count up to 56 persons, because they repeated that three times, then the bus started moving and a policeman shouted that whoever moved they were going to kill that person, and that was sometime between 9 and 9:30 am.

We were on the road for more or less 5 hours, they kept on torturing us and they raped some women, and then we arrived at Santiaguito Prison, Mexico State, approximately at 2:30 pm. At the office in the prison, I was beaten and they asked me about where I was born, who were my parents, how old they were, if they were alive or dead, how many brothers and sisters I had, if I was the eldest or not, if I was married, what was the name of my wife, how many children I had, what was the name of my eldest son, how old he was. By that moment, they told me they were going to investigate, and after that they got me into a bathroom, and a policeman asked me to take off my clothes, and to do some squats and to put my clothes back on. Then they took the last thing I was carrying, which was a photographer’s vest, new film and a handmade glasses case. They gave the glasses to me, saying I was going to need them in the prison. Inside the prison the psychological torture went on.

The events that took place in Texcoco on May 3rd and at San Salvador Atenco, on May 4th, 2006, are a sample of rape, torture and abuse of authority. I demand justice and freedom for those who are still imprisoned at Molino de las Flores and la Palma prisons, Mexico State."