Protest at Mexican prison where Mel Gibson movie will be filmed

Veracruz (Mexico), Dec 29 (IANS/EFE) Several hundred people protested outside a prison in the Mexican city of Veracruz - where an upcoming Mel Gibson movie is to be filmed - to demand that a planned transfer of inmates not be moved up to an earlier date.

Close to 300 relatives of inmates at the Ignacio Allende prison blocked access to the penitentiary Monday to block a possible moving-up of a planned prisoner transfer, which initially had been scheduled for January so Gibson could start filming in the first days of 2010.

“Mel Gibson, it’s your fault they want to take our family away,” one of the protesters’ signs read.

Others bore the messages “Don’t take them away, please. They’re not animals” and “No transfers. Respect for families”.

The demonstrators said authorities were planning to move up the transfer of the 1,000 inmates at the facility to the end-of-year holidays.

Local authorities soon will inaugurate a new prison to replace the current penitentiary, which is located along one of the main avenues in this port city.

But the demonstrators demanded that authorities wait until January to transfer the inmates to the new prison, which will be located a few km from Veracruz port. They say moving them now will mean the prisoners will first have to be taken to penitentiaries far from their places of origin before they are moved to the new facility.

The shooting of Gibson’s new movie, details of which have not been announced, will last several months and be centred on the prison installations, which currently house inmates convicted of crimes ranging from robbery and homicide to drug trafficking and kidnapping.

Gibson, one of Hollywood’s biggest names, filmed his 2006 Maya epic “Apocalypto” in Veracruz state.

–IANS/EFE