A riot at the notoriously harsh Durango [2] prison known as Social Readaption Center (CERESEO) No. 1 left 23 inmates dead and another 20 injured Jan. 20. Army troops were sent in to put down the violence, which supposedly involved members of the rival Gulf Cartel [3] and Sinaloa Cartel [4]. (El Universal [5], AHN [6], Jan. 21)
There were also protests at the Ignacio Allende Social Readaption Center in Veracruz [7] last month following plans to vacate a section of the prison and transfer the inmates elsewhere—apparently so that the facility could be used to film a Mel Gibson [8] movie. At protests outside the prison, hundreds of inmate family members held signs reading "No transfers to make a movie," and voiced fears that their loved ones would be moved to distant locations, making visitation more difficult. Veracruz Gov. Fidel Herrera Beltrán insisted that the closure and transfers were not for the movie, but due to intelligence that an uprising was planned for the prison. (Diario de Xalapa [9], Jan. 14; Cinema Blend [10], Dec. 30)
See our last post on Mexico's narco wars [11].
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