Flag-As-Charmin = Jail




(Sullivan, center, with Abudadein to the left, Sir Oliver Humperdink to the right, Fallen Angel on her knees)

The Washington Post's Kevin Sullivan --- presumably back in action after that fake devil worship schtick he used to pull in Florida --- reports on a scatalogical scandal south of the border.

Sergio Witz Rodriguez was one ticked-off poet.

He thought nobody was solving Mexico's social and economic problems, least of all its politicians. So he worked himself into a righteous, lyrical lather and wrote a 21-line poem, saying, among other things, that he would like to use the Mexican flag as toilet paper.

The poem was published in a literary journal in 2001. That's when Witz, a father of three young girls, was arrested, fingerprinted, hauled before a judge and introduced to Chapter 5, Article 191 of the federal penal code, which calls for up to four years in prison for "insulting national symbols."

"This is absurd," said Witz, 42, a college literature professor in this Caribbean city on the Yucatan Peninsula. "I am not a threat to the state."

Now, after more than three years of legal proceedings that Witz described as Kafkaesque, his case may soon be heard by the Mexican Supreme Court in what legal analysts called one of the most important freedom of expression cases in recent memory.

The Mexican constitution guarantees free speech, as long as that speech doesn't injure someone else, provoke a crime or incite public disturbances. But federal law dating to the 1930s makes it illegal for anyone to insult national symbols, particularly the flag and the national anthem. The laws are vestiges of an era when presidents with vast power controlled the press and placed little importance on individual freedoms. Legal observers said the court may use Witz's case to determine the constitutionality of the law.

Since President Vicente Fox was elected in 2000, breaking the 71-year-rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, he has called for greater guarantees for freedom of expression and the press. But analysts say that old thinking persists. Congress recently censured an artist for her "kitsch" depictions of the Mexican flag, and officials in several states have taken steps to curb free expression. One governor recently had two men jailed for a week for shouting insults at him at a public rally.

"We have yet to understand that democracy is based on freedom of expression," said Jaime Cardenas, a specialist in constitutional law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. "The courts and authorities must learn to interpret things differently, to put freedom above other considerations."

The Witz case is similar to debates over flag burning in the United States. Some argue that people in a free society have a right to desecrate national symbols in protest, while others argue that attacking those symbols is a criminal act of disrespect. U.S. laws prohibiting the burning or defiling of the American flag have been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

"By spreading his negative philosophy, he's destroying our values," said Abel Santa Cruz Menchaca, 63, a former military officer who filed the original complaint against Witz. Menchaca, whose father and grandfather were generals in the Mexican army, said Witz was "attacking something that gives us identity as Mexicans."

Menchaca said Witz has overstepped his rights by insulting other Mexicans. He said it was "dangerous" to publish such a poem, likening it to a passenger on a crowded boat urging other passengers to poke holes in the hull. "If we don't respect our laws, we are a nation of savages," Menchaca said.

Posted: Sun - October 17, 2004 at 01:32 PM      

©