Political Activist Beheaded in Central Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Police found the decapitated body of political activist Gustavo Salgado on a highway in the central Mexican state of Morelos, the People’s Revolutionary Front, or EPR, said Thursday.

The body of the 32-year-old EPR member was found on Wednesday afternoon, a day after he was reported missing, by police in Mototepec, a town outside the city of Ayala.

Salgado, who appeared to have been tortured, was identified by EPR members, who blamed the government for the murder.

“This crime is part of the policy of terror that the state has implemented to try to scare the popular movement in general and our organization in particular,” the EPR said.

The EPR released a statement on Tuesday reporting Salgado’s disappearance as he headed to Ayala after attending a meeting with peasants who are demanding housing in the town of Emiliano Zapata.

Local political bosses and officials had Salgado under “constant surveillance and harassment” because of his work on behalf of migrant workers from Guerrero and Oaxaca who want land and housing, the EPR said.

Salgado was the victim of an “illegal arrest on March 20, 2014, in Cuernavaca, Morelos, while participating in a march organized by the Citizens Front against the Income Tax Law,” the EPR said.