Yorch is an anarchist serving a 7.5 year sentence for trumped up drug charges, thought to be fabricated due to his activism.
Background:
Jorge “Yorch” Esquivel is an artisan, a cook, an anarchist, and has been part of the okupa and punk scenes of Mexico City since a young age. Yorch has organized in solidarity with various social movements by cooking and distributing food, including the student movement, the workers’ movement, and the movement to free political prisoners. For more than twenty years, Yorch has been a member of the Okupa Che, an anarchist self-managed social center held since 1999 on the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City. The State and UNAM first detained Yorch in 2016, and then again in 2022, in an attempt to criminalize the center and justify evicting the space.
Legal Case:
Yorch was first detained by plain clothes officers just outside the UNAM campus in 2016. Tortured during his arrest and transport, and in violation of the law, he was sent to federal prisons in Miahuatlán, Oaxaca, and then Hermosillo, Sonora. He was charged with dealing drugs after police planted a backpack full on various drugs on him during his arrest. A judge eventually reduced the charges to simple possession and ordered Yorch be released. On December 8, 2022, he was detained again on the outskirts of the UNAM campus, and the charges dismissed from 2016 were reinstated against him. Since that date, he has been held in Reclusorio Oriente in Mexico City. The case has been plagued by irregularities and delays. On June 3, 2024, Yorch was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison. His appeal of that sentence is currently pending before the courts.
Media:
https://itsgoingdown.org/mexico-anarchist-prisoner-jorge-yorch-esquivel-sentenced/
https://itsgoingdown.org/okupa-che-yorch-to-the-streets/
Mail Restrictions:
There is no known method to send mail to people held in prison in Mexico.
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