A full page advertisement appeared in a Mexican newspaper today paid for by, and making the demands of, prisoners within the state detention system. The prison systems operation has recently been taken over by armed forces following increasing problems from the drug gangs who had previously been in charge.

Prisoners are now subject, the advertisement claims, to a loss of their human rights. Hooded gangs of soldiers are roaming the prisons at night subjecting inmates to harrassment and torture. The advertisement demands an end to this humiliating behaviour imported from US style incarceration camps.

Furthermore prisoners are demanding the right to have a range of soft drinks available in the vending machines. As if prisoners taking out advertisements in newspapers were not bizarre enough, the linking of demands for an end to Abu-Ghraib style torture with a return to the availability of Coca-Cola makes this story of Mexico importing Americanisms get weirder and weirder.