Mexican Peace Movement: Mexican lawmakers urged by Javier Sicilia to reject gov't crime bill

Mexican lawmakers urged to reject gov't crime bill - Fox News Latino: "Prominent poet and peace activist Javier Sicilia urged Mexican lawmakers here Thursday to defeat the public safety bill President Felipe Calderon proposed in April 2009 and 'replace it with another one drafted jointly with citizens.'

'The law they want passed undermines the freedoms and civil rights enshrined in the constitution and validates the disgraceful effort to rein in institutional corruption and inefficiency by imposing a military and police state,' Sicilia told members of Congress during a public forum at the Chapultepec Castle.

In April 2009, Calderon proposed a wide-ranging plan to Congress that outlines the norms governing his controversial policy of using the military in law enforcement.

Calderon has maintained that the military must have the lead role in the drug war for the time being because municipal and state police have been thoroughly corrupted by well-funded cartels.

The bill was revised in the Senate and has now been sent to the lower house for further analysis. ...

"We can't allow democracy to surrender to authoritarianism or chaos and we also can't let peace surrender to war in order to preserve 'partyocracy' (a political system dominated by traditional parties) and privileges that betray the fatherland," said the poet, who founded the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity after his son's murder by suspected drug-gang members four months ago."