This posting is part of our Write-a-Thon Cases Series. For more information visit www.amnestyusa.org/writeathon/

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You’ve read before on this blog about the women of Atenco, who were arrested without explanation during a police operation in response to protests by a local peasant organization in San Salvador Atenco, in Mexico State. Dozens of them were subjected to physical, psychological and sexual violence by the police officers who arrested them.

In the case of one of the women, Bárbara Italia Méndez, police officers pulled her hair, beat her, and forced her into a state police vehicle with her shirt pulled over her head. She was made to lie on top of other detainees, and during the journey to the prison, police officers sexually assaulted her repeatedly.

More than three years later, these brave survivors are still waiting for justice. None of the officials responsible for their abuse have been held accountable. One of the women was able to identify her attacker, and he was tried on the watered-down charge of “libidinous acts” and sentenced to time served plus a small fine. He appealed the ruling, and was acquitted, thus avoiding even that weak punishment.

In October, 2006, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission issued a recommendation calling for criminal investigations into abuses committed by police in Atenco, but the recommendation has not been implemented effectively. Later, in February 2009, the Mexican Supreme Court issued a decision stating that human rights abuses had in fact occurred in Atenco, and the women of Atenco still haven’t seen justice.

Federal authorities had conducted an investigation that resulted in a list of 34 names of police officers who were suspected of being responsible for the abuses, but the federal authorities recently concluded that these individuals should be prosecuted at the state level. Now is the time to push for real justice and ask the Governor of Mexico State not to let this impunity continue.

With help from Morgan Brescia, AIUSA Campaign for Individuals at Risk

Today is Oscar Grant’s funeral.  He is the latest in a long string of unarmed black men to be killed by police.  The night he died, Oscar, 22, was out celebrating New Year’s Eve.  At around 2 a.m., he and friends were pulled off of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train- Northern California’s subway system- by police officers.  He was unarmed and cooperative, even telling friends to calmly oblige the police.  That did nothing to save Oscar Grant.  Within minutes, without cause, a police officer would shoot him in the back, execution-style.

Watch the video yourself.  You’ll see Oscar sitting up against a wall with several other young men, cooperating with police instruction.  Eyewitnesses report that “the cops were hitting, yelling and cussing at the guys”, while dozens of people called out about the mistreatment.  Oscar put his palms up, a clear indication of compliance.  Then officers dragged him from the wall and pushed him onto his stomach, his face pressed to the floor.

Oscar feared for his life.  Witnesses describe Oscar pleading for police not to taser him, begging, “Please, please, don’t tase me.”  Instead, one police officer pressed his knee onto the back of Oscar’s neck.  A second officer, Johannes Mehserle, leaned over him, reached for his gun, pointed it within about a foot of Oscar’s body and shot him in the back.  The officers look at each other as Oscar writhes in pain and turns to look at the man who killed him.  On video, you can see Oscar speaking to the officer.  Witnesses tell us that he cried, “You shot me!  I got a four-year-old daughter!”  The video doesn’t show the officers immediately administering first aid to the man they shot.  Instead, it appears to show police handcuffing Oscar, who wouldn’t live to see the sun rise on a new year.

I take the killing of Oscar Grant personally.  Not because it happened in the area of my birthplace.  Not because I’m a person of color who, like many people of color in the country, has experienced police abuse of power, first-hand.  Not because I grew up in fear of the police after my father, the safest driver I know, was told by a police officer on a bogus stop, that the cop was considering shooting my dad.  Not because of the fact, that despite the shield of my lawyer’s license, my heart still pounds at the sight of a police badge.

Oscar’s killing is personal because his death offends the fundamental principles of justice, every notion of dignity and the idea that through those threads, all of our lives are connected.  As human beings, we are responsible for each other.  His death means that we must work for his justice.