Sergio Witz

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Sergio Witz Rodríguez (b. 1962 in Campeche, Campeche) is a Mexican poet. His literary work has been recognized by the FONCA (a government agency that promotes the arts and culture by funding promising talents). Sergio Witz is known because he was the winner of the 1994 Tabasco Poetry Prize and has also been awarded with other prizes. He is the author of "Hierba ardiente", "Ciudad de paso" and "Mi odio por los barcos". He can be considered to follow the tradition of the "poètes maudits" such as Charles Baudelaire in France and Charles Bukowski in the United States.

In 2002 he published a brief poem under the title "La patria entre mierda" ("The Motherland among the Shit"), in which he expressed a desire to use the flag of Mexico as lavatory paper. Because of this, The Attorney General's filed federal charges against him for "insulting national symbols". An amparo relief filing he lodged with the Supreme Court was dismissed on October 5, 2005, allowing the prosecution to proceed. On May 7, 2008 a federal court in Campeche found him guilty and, ignoring the public prosecutor's request that a custodial sentence be imposed, ordered him to pay a fine of $50 (€3.10, US$4.75).^[1]

The case, a brief cause celèbre, fueled an argument among people who felt that the poem might be guilty of being of low quality but that any punishment would be exaggerated given that the poem reflects what most of the people of the country thinks: that the motherland has been repeatedly abused by corrupt politicians and none of them has ever faced a judge.