Excellent post!
"Don Gabacho" <jpastore@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:8df490c2-a9cd-41cb-a73f-9effd593cc26@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
CALLS FREE EXPRESSION ADVOCATE "ENEMY OF THE STATE" DURING
MISSION
The international vice-president of the World Association of Community
Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) was called an "enemy of the state" by a
high-ranking government official while on a free expression mission to
Mexico.
Aleida Calleja, a Mexican journalist and AMARC's international vice-
president, was verbally accosted by Juan de Dios Castro Lozano, the
Deputy Attorney General responsible for human rights and victim
sup****t, during a 21 April meeting between Castro and an international
free expression mission made up of 11 organisations.
While discussing the recent murder of two community radio journalists
in Oaxaca, Castro told Calleja, "You are an enemy of the state because
of the things that you say."
Throughout the meeting, Castro maintained a confrontational tone,
despite members of the mission repeatedly saying that they were
interested in collaborating.
Mexico continues to be the most dangerous country for journalists in
the Americas. The 11 organisations, eight of which are IFEX members,
visited Mexico City and the states of Oaxaca, Michoacán, Sonora and
Guerrero from 20 to 25 April to do***ent attacks on journalists and
media outlets. They found that the main obstacles for the work of
journalists are organised crime, corruption, lack of political will
and the failure of the Mexican authorities to provide protection and
security to journalists.
In the past eight years, at least 24 journalists and media workers
have been killed, eight have disappeared and dozens have been
threatened or attacked in direct reprisal for their work. On 30 April,
Jorge Carrasco Taracena, a crime re****ter for the television station
Televisa, went missing in Mexico City amid an increase in violence
related to drug trafficking.
In a separate incident, four re****ters from "El Debate" newspaper were
assaulted and threatened by federal police officers on 6 May as they
tried to cover the setting up of an anti-drug trafficking checkpoint
in Culiacán, Sinaloa state.
Visit these links:
- AMARC on incident: http://tinyurl.com/4faykm
- International Mission letter to Calderón:
http://legislaciones.amarc.org/MEX_Carta_a_Calderon.pdf
- International Mission preliminary re****t: http://tinyurl.com/3vten4
- IFEX Mexico page: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/97/
(13 May 2008)
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