Mexican Student Activist Found Dead: Justice for Pavel

Noel Pavel Gonzalez was an activist during the UNAM student strike of
1999-2000. He was part of the Strike Committee of the CCH Sur and
earlier enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. He was a
student in the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) and
he
continued participating in the Another World is Possible protests in
Cancun and Monterrey. Until the present he helped as a volunteer in
the
Smaliyel Cooperative.

On 19 April of this year Pavel disappeared. On 23 April there was a
protest in Mexico City outside the Judicial Police of the Federal
District (PGJDF). On 24 April he was found in at Pico del Aguila del
Ajusco. His body showed signs of physical mistreatment, torture and a
blow to the head which caused a skull fracture. He was found propped
up
and hanging on a wooden cross of three metres, according to
information
in La Jornada, 27 April.

Some people might think that this act is part of the urban violence
which afflicts us daily, but the marks of systematic torture for the
four days during which he was captured and the fractured skull (a mark
of the Mexican army) makes evident the political undertone of this
backward assassination.

Obviously we do not believe it was suicide.

The students and professors of the UNAM and ENAH universities demand
the
investigation of this vile assassination.

PS Pass this message to all of your contacts. This crime must not rest
with impunity. We cannot permit a return to the dirty war of the 1970s
in Mexico.