U.S. authorities refused to allow a Mexican airline to fly over U.S. airspace last week because one of the passengers on board was the prominent Mexican activist and sociologist Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar. She was headed to Italy, where she was scheduled to speak. The plane was already in the air when the pilot was notified he could not cross into U.S. airspace. In 1992, Aguilar was arrested, tortured and imprisoned in Bolivia and charged, together with Bolivia’s currently elected vice president, Álvaro García, with belonging to a guerrilla organization. The charges were later dropped.