The academic and scientific Julieta Fierro, considered that the investigation of the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) against the 31 investigators of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) would be related to the new Law of Science Technology, Humanity and Innovation.
Through your account Twitter, Fierro Gossman questioned: “Could it be that this excessive attack on scientists is due to the fact that the new CTHI law is about to be approved and you want to create an atmosphere of terror so that there are no protests by a law that seeks to concentrate power and limit resources and freedom of investigation?”, wrote.
In an interview with journalist Denise Maerker, Julieta Fierro said she was horrified by the investigations against her colleagues with whom she has collaborated for more than 17 years.
He assured that Conacyt has done everything in its power to continue working for science in Mexico, so -he said- the action of the FGR aims to discredit the institution, in addition to questioning the autonomy of research institutions and freedom of research.
“This accusing people who work in Conacyt and in the Consultative Forum is a horrible nonsense, I don’t know where it comes from. I imagine it is one of these terror techniques, because this new Law on Science, Technology, Humanity and Innovation is about to be approved. and this law is restrictive in the sense that it wants the only adviser to the president on science and technology is the director of Conacyt and this seems very serious to me, it is giving too much power to a person ”, he warned.
The accusations against investigators of the Conacyt for the crimes of embezzlement, illicit use of powers and powers, money laundering and organized crime; have unleashed a generalized rejection, even among some members of the government of the Fourth Transformation led by the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, because they consider it an excess.
Some voices have assured that the actions of the FGR are a kind of revenge for Alejandro Gertz Manero because the defendants had rejected the prosecutor as an investigator.
And it is that, since 2010, Gertz Manero He had tried to enter the National System of Researchers (SNI), but the Conacyt rejected him considering that it had “insufficient scientific production” and “did not demonstrate productivity for the generation and transmission of new knowledge”, which are the main requirements established in the regulations.
It was then that Alejandro Gertz took the case to federal courts, but the Council of Conacyt confirmed the refusal on four more occasions.
But 11 years later already under the administration of María Elena Álvarez-Buylla at the head of Conacyt, Gertz Manero was admitted to the SIN with a level III “For his work and its national and international significance.” He did it without going through Candidate I and II levels, like the rest of the researchers who apply.
According to the UNAM researcher, William Sheridan, to achieve Gertz Manero’s entry into the SIN, a Special Judging Commission chaired by Ernesto Villanueva, who judged that Gertz had been a victim of discrimination by the evaluation commissions when they concluded that his academic career lacked merit.
The commission argued that Gertz Manero not only had ample merits, but that his work is “of national and international significance”, as evidenced by his “academic works”, including five books as “sole author.”
But in one of these books Guillermo Prieto (Biography), Gertz Manero was accused of plagiarism, by copying complete paragraphs of other works by authors such as Salvador Ortiz Vidales and Malcolm D. McLean, who wrote two books on Guillermo Prieto, as revealed by the editorial of El Universal entitled Plagiarist Favorecido, on July 7.
In the editorial, the SNI is questioned for allegedly favoring characters who do not meet the academic requirements to be so, and instead political criteria are taken into account, taking the place of others who would deserve it and who require the support they receive. you have the right as a member of the system.
Alejandro Gertz Manero described as false, fraudulent and lacking in all journalistic ethics what was pointed out by the media.
After in 2019, the director of Conacyt María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, filed a complaint before the Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF) where he denounced that the budget granted to the Conacyt Consultative Forum in the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, he exceeded what was necessary for the fulfillment of his functions; the FGR accused the investigators and asked that they be admitted to the maximum security prison of The Altiplano, in the State of Mexico.
But last August, a federal judge from the El Altiplano prison, refused to grant the arrest warrants due to various inconsistencies. Then, the FGR made a second request to ensure that those involved participated in an illegal resource allocation scheme.
On Wednesday, September 23, a federal judge definitively denied issuing arrest warrants against the accused investigators, for which the FGR was not satisfied and assured that it will insist again.
In his resolution, the judge pointed out that the private company that Conacyt public servants created, authorized and funded and later joined it (Consultative Forum), is not a criminal act, since the Conacyt statute authorizes it.
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