(This Article has been written by Chema Segura SJ, from Entreculturas Aragón)

To accompany and advocate about their situation, the movement Reconoci.do organizes different kinds of event (talks, dances, flash mob, distribution of tracts, protest) around the 12th of each month. Last 11 March, about 15 members of the Movement Reconoci.do were arrested due to a new excess by CEB and in an act of repression from the national police (as Amnesty International reports.

Those member started a vigil of three days in front of the CEB to increase Dominican citizens ´ awareness, to shed light on their situation and to accompany in "fast on bread and water" the Thematic Hearing about their situation which was developing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (in Washington). Father General Mario Serrano SJ, Director of the Center Bonó (one of Entreculturas´ counterparts) was among those arrested.

"We were arrested at 9 at night. The police took us in four vans while throwing teargas bombs, without telling us the reasons why we were arrested or where they were tanking us; they took us to Las Caobas and left us in a malodorous and dark room. Our cameras weren´t there and a computer was destroyed." Said Mario Serrano SJ.

The fact that the director of the center was also arrested along with the members of the movement shed light on a crucial dimension of Bonó´s way of doing things: the integral accompaniment of the people. Supported by Entreculturas, along with other institutions, the Center provides movement Reconoci.do with training in different areas, such as, Knowledge about their rights, non-violence fight tactics, leadership and political impact, to name just a few. The organization of this vigil is, partly, due to this training and accompaniment.

Neither the police nor the CEB have expressed privately or publicly apologies, in spite of the complaint regarding the arbitrary and unlawful arrest, the violations of freedom of expression and of association submitted to Prosecutor´s Office of the National District, with the support of the Office of the Procurator for the Defense of Human Rights and of the Chief Prosecutor of the National District.