This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Armed civilians ambushed and detained eight state police Tuesday in Huejuquilla El Alto taking their weapons and forcing them to record a video before releasing them were on a routine patrol on the highway to Valparaíso when a group of more than 50 armed civilians emerged from the brush and attacked them The officers surrendered to the much larger group of attackers as well as the officers’ patrol cars one of which was later found riddled with bullet holes The civilians then forced the police to record a cellphone video making statements in defense of criminal activity “We categorically reject these statements and emphasize that they were obtained under coercion and threats to the lives of our police,” the Jalisco Public Security Ministry said on Twitter The ministry also reported that the eight officers are safe and will cooperate with official investigations into the incident With reports from El Universal ADVERTISE WITH MND COMMUNITY GUIDELINES Subscription FAQ's Privacy Policy Mexico News Daily - Property of Tavana LLC Mexico - Five hundred years after it started the Spanish Conquest has finally reached the Huichol In this Mexican city perched high in the Sierra Madre a small band of people is urgently recording native Huichol traditions like monks preparing for the onset of a modern Dark Ages the Huichol Center is spearheading an effort to preserve a culture thousands of years old - cataloguing images burning language CDs and running a bustling crafts center to underwrite a shoestring budget Center founder Susana Valadez calls what's happening to the Huichol - one of the most remote Native groups in Mexico - a ''modern-day conquest.'' A core population of 10,000 people lives in isolated communities increasingly encircled by the electronic grid So the center has taken up the fight by using the tools of the conqueror - to achieve different ends ''If they're going to be able to be at the helm of their lives they're going to have a broad range of computer skills,'' Valadez said pointing to a 13-year-old Huichol girl in the next office working away contentedly in Photoshop she explained: ''The practical level of my work is to save the language and save the art so the Huichol people have it available to them.'' The Huichol of central Mexico have fiercely resisted all invaders Neither Toltecs nor Aztecs could penetrate their mountain redoubts most Huichol communities in Jalisco state live without modern conveniences like electricity But people are migrating out for lack of work Roads and power lines are becoming more common Even the language is endangered in mestizo towns like Huejuquilla So the center has made conservation a priority especially the thousands of Huichol paintings and masks whose images have created a web of ancient and elegant symbols has worked at the center for several years His job is to translate colorful yarn paintings the artistic product of shamanistic dreams into electronic ''books of color.'' Montoya converts the paintings into black and white line drawings on screen before coloring them with sophisticated graphics programs like Flash The paintings are then annotated with text from scholarly books and recorded interviews with elders and shamans Montoya, who won a national competition in 2004 for an essay on preserving Huichol culture, knows that many Native schools lack computers and may never be able to see the fruit of his labor. ''My objective is to publish this work and get it into the schools and communities where it can be taught to children in Huichol.'' A printing press is the center's abiding dream. ''It's like they have this treasure chest, but nobody really knows about it because it hasn't been recorded or distributed in large amounts,'' Valadez said . ''A large volume of these publications would bring a lot of people back into the realization that their cultural heritage is their best asset and their best tool for survival in the modern world.'' A staff of 40, two-thirds of them Huichol, work at the center. Some are busy computing and word processing; others are producing arts and crafts, soymilk, copal, incense, blue corn and amaranth for local and regional markets. Nonprofits have kicked in some funding, and the municipal government has given land for a future museum. But it costs $4,000 a week, Valadez said, just to keep the center running. The Mexican government ''puts more money toward the preservation of sea turtles than they do towards keeping a fascinating Native culture that survived against all odds into the 21st century,'' Valadez said. She holds out hope that universities north of the border will become partners in a project racing against time to anchor the Huichol past. The center also runs a day care facility and school for children ages 4 - 12. At the end of a normal school day, kids come to learn how to read their mother tongue in an environment far removed from the mestizo culture of the streets. Valadez married her husband, Mariano, a renowned Huichol yarn painter, and together they founded the center in Nayarit state some 30 years ago. Later divorced, she moved the operation to Huejuquilla in the 1990s. ''If in 2055 some Huichol working in Mexico City says, 'You know, I can remember we used to make the peyote pilgrimage and I have these dreams I can't explain,' they can actually go back to the archives and find a road map to recovering this amazing tradition,'' Valadez said. Will you support our work?All of our content is free And we have hired more Native journalists in the past year than any news organization ─ and with your help we will continue to grow and create career paths for our people Support Indian Country Today for as little as $10 Crime bosses in northern Jalisco only allow patron saints’ festivals to go ahead if parish priests agree to give them half the proceeds according to the archbishop of Guadalajara “In order to celebrate the patronal festival – the town fair in other words – all the parishes in the area have to obtain the permission of the plaza chief The plaza chief authorizes the priest to hold the patronal festival but he has to … [hand over] 50% of the festival revenue,” Cardinal José Francisco Robles Ortega said also revealed that he was stopped and interrogated by criminals last week to the border area with Zacatecas precisely and they’re obviously organized crime roadblocks,” Robles said “They demand you say where you’re coming from Robles noted that Zacatecas Bishop Sigifredo Noriega Barceló had the same experience while in northern Jalisco last week While such occurrences are common in that part of Jalisco – the home state of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) – they are not incidents “we should grow accustomed to,” the archbishop said Noriega told reporters he was stopped by armed men last Thursday while on his way to visit communities in Jalisco that are part of his diocese “We were going from Huejuquilla to Tenzompa,” he said “… What struck me was that it wasn’t the National Guard or the army [who stopped us] They were people from one of the crime groups,” Noriega said He added that it was the first time he had encountered an organized crime checkpoint “Of course fear is present. We take the [safety] measures that everyone takes [but] there’s no special protection [for bishops],” Noriega said, speaking just days after two priests were murdered in the Sierra Tarahumara region of Chihuahua His daunting experience occurred in the municipality of Huejuquilla El Alto – where eight state police officers were detained by armed civilians last November – while the organized crime roadblocks Robles encountered were in Totatiche and Villa Guerrero “With what authority does an organized crime group block you Echoing a call from the Jalisco State Human Rights Commission (CEDHJ) Robles urged authorities to provide greater security to the residents of northern Jalisco The CEDJH last week called on all three levels of government to ramp up security due to the presence of rival criminal groups Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.