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MEXICO, SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, 19/01/2010 Notimex / EFE - Issue ACPress.net
 More than 400 Indians of various points in the state of Chiapas in southeastern Mexico, slept on Tuesday 19 to the open front of the Palace of Justice in the city of San Cristobal de las Casas to protest a rising wave of religious intolerance against Protestant minorities. Indigenous people of Chiapas have decided to make their voices heard. At the protest camp located in San Cristobal de las Casas sleep beside campfires, to protect against low temperatures in the morning, hundreds of men, women and children.
They demand an end to religious intolerance and economic compensation in specific cases, for example for housing five families of evangelicals in the community of Los Llanos, which were destroyed by a group of traditionalist Catholics to force them to abandon the town.
At the location, near San Cristobal de Las Casas, rural authorities recognize that a total of 30 evangelicals were driven by "breaking the community relations" by refusing to cooperate with the community and for "lack of respect for the customs and traditions .
The commissioner of that district rural, Jesus Perez-Diaz, said in a statement that the eviction of five families took place "without violence" and resolution of the Assembly of that population.
According to the authorities of the indigenous people, evangelicals "shock to the community" with their religious acts, because "they shout they just follow what God tells them." This is interpreted as "an excuse to neglect their obligations towards the community."
Fraternal solidarity
The pastor and attorney Esdras Alonso Gonzalez of the Evangelical Church "Wings of Eagle", said participating in the demonstration and Tsotsil indigenous Chiapas Tzeltal all in support of their "brothers in faith."
"Silence is sometimes complicated. If you are allowed to pass the attacks are repeated and repeated, and the authority not resolved," Gonzalez said. "Only with demonstrations serve us, therefore, however small, faith communities are not alone," he said.
RETALIATION
Evangelicals are harassed in different ways. Mariano Pérez Pérez, a municipality of Zinacantan Tsotsil says that a year ago they removed the water service, telephone and electric power to seven families, including his own, allegedly for being gospel.
According to Perez, the families refused to donate money to the traditional celebrations of Catholic saints and madonnas Zinacantan reason to be attacked and threatened with expulsion from the area.
Abel Molina Vazquez and Roman Gomez Vazquez, of the Church of Christ in the municipality of Teopisca, for their part say they spent 48 hours in jail for refusing to cooperate with the organization of a Catholic festival.
ARMY OF GOD
While awaiting the reply from the Government, every evening evangelicals made a march through the streets of San Cristobal headed by a group of men and women in uniform with beret and camouflage pants, members of the "Army of God", a civil organization in which their but unarmed members hold military titles as "commander" and "general".
In Chiapas, one of the poorest states in Mexico, mostly inhabited by Indians, operating about 50 evangelical radio stations, which shows the progress of Protestantism in that region of Mexico, bordering Guatemala. According to the evangelical churches in the area, in 40% of Chiapas is the presence of other religions other than Catholicism.
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More than 400 Indians of various points in the state of Chiapas in southeastern Mexico, slept on Tuesday 19 to the open front of the Palace of Justice in the city of San Cristobal de las Casas to protest a rising wave of religious intolerance against Protestant minorities. 
