Archive for March, 2008
Mexican Human Rights Commission to investigate attacks against emos
Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission is to investigate all of the reported cases of aggression against the emo youth subculture in Mexico, following a spate of violence and hostility across the country directed at the group.
According to El Universal, the Commission called for tolerance yesterday and voiced concern that attacks against emos violate the right to freedom of expression, equality, freedom of expression and the right to association.
Unrest around 'emos' continues in Mexico
The peace rally organised by the Mexico City government last week to try and settle differences between emos and what is thought are other youth groups seems to have failed.
As covered by Daniel Hernandez here on his blog, which has provided excellent coverage of the disturbances, a march for tolerance which took place yesterday through central Mexico City turned rather nasty, especially when it arrived at El Chopo market.
See here for more.
Video: Making peace with los emos in Mexico City
MexicoReporter.com headed down to Insurgentes yesterday with the Los Angeles Times to cover a kind of peace rally organised by the leftist city government following the friction between emos and other youth groups, reported earlier this week.
The result was this blog post by correspondent Ken Ellingwood and myself featuring a video interview with 18-year-old Andrea Velazquez.
Movie 'La Zona' thrills with its ambiguous take on Mexico's class divide
This brilliant directorial debut from Uruguayan-born Rodrigo Pla poses some of life’s most fundamental moral questions in a film that grips the viewer right from the start.
The feature also brings to the cinema, with very little exaggeration, some of the social dynamics of Mexican society and its obstacles to justice.
Set in a gated community for the rich in Mexico City, whose golf course is overlooked by shantytowns, the movie grapples with the issues of the rule of law, vigilante justice and corruption. Director Pla and screenwriter Laura Santullo use a bungled robbery that takes place in a suburb that is run by its own rules as the axis of the film’s moral quandary.
'Emos' under attack in Mexico, City Gov tries to peacemake
The Mexico City Government called a meeting today for the coming Tuesday between the city’s ‘urban tribes’ to try to put an end to the increasing violence and animosity against emos that is currently sweeping Mexico – see Daniel Hernandez’s blog here for an excellent synopisis of the current situation.
Since the first attack against the group of youths who identify themselves as ‘emos’ happened in Queretero at the beginning of the month, animosity has been growing amongst those who resent the ‘emo’ look and attitude.
Police linked to death threats of Veracruz newspaper
At around 10pm on Tuesday night of this week, Auricela Castro García, the publisher of El Mundo de Orizaba, a daily based in Orizaba in the southeastern state of Veracruz, received a phonecall.
Identifying himself as José Sánchez, the caller asked to speak to the publisher “for personal reasons.” The call was transferred to the editor, who said Castro was in a meeting and unavailable. The caller replied: “Tell her she has information, she knows what I am talking about, and if she publishes it, she will be killed.”
'La Misma Luna' splits critics
Fox Searchlight – Under the Same Moon – Official Site_1205966977021La Misma Luna, or Under the Same Moon, made its Mexico City debut last week to a full house. The movie, which is the first Latino-centric feature from Fox Searchlight, tells the story of the separation of mother and son against the backdrop of thorny issue of immigration between Mexico and the United States.
The film has divided critics – which can only be a good sign. Your humble correspondent found it an enjoyable film which, although pulls at the heartstrings a little too gratuitously in places, portrays well the strong relationship between mother and son and also brings to a mainstream flick the important and political issue of immigration between Latin America and the United States.
Mexico: Impunity and Collusion
Threats to reporters from government and criminals are making investigative journalism impossible, writes Deborah Bonello
In February this year, the car of Mexican journalist Estrada Zamora was found empty on the side of the road in the southern state of Michoacán with its engine running. Zamora was not inside and has not been seen since.
Click on the link above to read the full article, published today by Index on Censorship.
Video: La Misma Luna
The focus of the latest film from LA-based Mexican director Patricia Riggen is torn from today’s headlines and deals with the issue of families separated by borders.
The Los Angeles Times talked with director Patricia Riggen and screenwriter Ligiah Villalobos in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, about making the film and Mexicans in LA.
This film appeared with this story on LATimes.com
Severe human rights problems persist in Mexico: US State Department
The headline might be stating the obvious, but for the record, according to the 2007 country report from the US State department, released this week:
‘The [Mexican] government generally respected and promoted human rights at the national level by investigating, prosecuting, and sentencing public officials and members of the security forces. However, impunity and corruption remained problems, particularly at the state and local level. The following human rights problems were reported: unlawful killings by security forces; kidnappings, including by police; physical abuse; poor and overcrowded prison conditions; arbitrary arrests and detention; corruption, inefficiency, and lack of transparency in the judicial system; confessions coerced through physical abuse permitted as evidence in trials; criminal intimidation of journalists leading to self-censorship; corruption at all levels of government; domestic violence against women, often perpetrated with impunity; violence, including killings, against women; trafficking in persons, sometimes allegedly with official involvement; social and economic discrimination against indigenous people; and child labor.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION DAY. PROTEST ONLINE TODAY.
Reporters Without Borders is tomorrow inviting Internet users to come and protest in online versions of the nine countries that are “Internet enemies”.
Violence censors journalists in Mexico
While traveling home through Pánuco, Veracruz with his 16 year old son in late January this year, Octavio Soto Torres, journalist and director of the Mexican daily Voces de Veracruz, was shot at by four masked gunmen. This was just the latest in the ongoing litany of attacks against journalists in Mexico. Torres, who escaped alive, is known for his harsh criticism of local authorities.
'Innocent until proven guilty' to underlie Mexican justice system
Sweeping overhauls to Mexico’s criminal trial system announced last week could bring the country into the modern world, according to the Financial Times. People suspected of crimes will be presumed innocent until proved guilty, according to the reforms backed by President Felipe Calderon.
‘For the first time – and assuming that a majority of the country’s 31 local legislatures approves the constitutional change – defendants will be presumed innocent until proved guilty. Trials will become open and more transparent, with judges and lawyers having to work in public and under the scrutiny of the media.’
amnesty.gifBut according to human rights groups, some of the elements of the reforms threaten to undermine human rights by allowing prosecutors to enforce house-arrest on suspects or to put suspects in jail before they’re charged.
Alberto Herrera, executive director of , said: “We want the judicial system to be efficient but this can mean permission to violate human rights.”
Ethical living? Stop taking cocaine
There is a great Leader in this Sunday’s Observer which makes a point I’ve often debated – how cocaine takers in Britain and the US, which provide the demand for the illegal drug industries in Latin America, tend not to think too hard about the impact their weekend drug habits might be having on other people.
If they did, given the trend for ethical shopping that is sweeping the Western World, demand would surely drop.
Video: Las Mariachis celebrate International Women's Day for BBCMundo.com
Tomorrow is international women’s day, so we went down to Plaza de Garibaldi to ask Mariachi Sonidos de America Feminil to sing a song for BBCMundo’s viewers across Latin America.
Please click here to watch the film.
Rights group attacks impunity in Mexico
The limited attempts of the Mexican Government to tackle the high levels of violence against journalists testifies ‘to the inability or unwillingness of the Mexican authorities to make the fight against impunity,’ according to Article19, the freedom of expression NGO.
Dr. Agnes Callamard, executive director of the group, said in a statement that the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for violence against journalists is ‘one of the most alarming characteristics of the overall human rights situation in Mexico’.
Mexico is still the deadliest country in the Americas for journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Brad Will's parents announce indy investigation into journo's death
Kathy and Hardy Will, parents of the Indymedia journalist Brad Will who was shot dead in Oaxaca more than a year ago, have branded the Mexican investigation into the journalist’s death “frustrating and disappointing” for its failure to find those responsible.
Will was shot dead by plain-clothed armed men on October 27th 2006 whilst covering the social disturbances in Oaxaca surrounding a teacher’s strike. The killing brought the death-toll of journalists in Mexico in 2006 to nine – the county is experiencing increasingly high levels of violence against journalists. It was purported to be the second most dangerous place to work in the world as a journalist after Iraq in 2006.
An investigation at the end of last year by the Attorney General on the case suggested that Will had been shot at close range. But Kathy and Hardy Will dismissed those findings as “illogical and irrational” and have announced that the American non-governmental organisation Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) will conduct an independent investigation.
Video: the shooting of Brad Will
It occurred to me that many of you may as yet have not seen the last few minutes of the life of journalist Brad Will – he taped his own shooting. It is strong stuff: be warned. This is a link to the video on YouTube.
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