Archive for October, 2007

Press Freedom Fighters Demand Legal Action in Mexico

Demands have been sent to the Mexican Government from international press freedom organisations this week calling for more vigorous legal proceedings and investigations into cases of violence against journalists.
Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists both sent letters to government officials this week following the one year anniversary of the death of Indymedia [...]

MexicoReporter.com broadens audience

MexicoReporter.com is now also appearing as a blog on the Frontline Club, a website for a London-based club for journalists, media professionals and foreign correspondents.

Oaxaca Remembers Brad Will

As many as 20,000 people gathered in Oaxaca City on Saturday this weekend to remember Brad Will, the American journalist shot dead a year ago.

The marchers also walked in memory of the Oaxacan teacher Alonso Fabian who was shot dead the same day during clashes between teachers and members of the APPO, and municipal police and government forces.

Video: Female Mariachi’s Croon in Mexico’s Plaza de Garibaldi

Mariachi Sonidos de America Feminil are defying Mexican tradition. A female band of Mariachis, the group of women musicians are confronting the macho culture of the Mariachi to give it a feminine touch. The group plays every night of the weekend in Mexico’s Plaza de Garibaldi.

One Year On, Supporters of Dead Journalist Oppose U.S Drugs Cash Proposal

Groups demanding justice for the murder of U.S journalist Brad Will, who was shot dead in Oaxaca, Mexico on this day last year, are opposing the $1.4 billion security proposal put forward by President George Bush this week as part of an initiative to help the country fight its illegal drugs trafficking problem.

‘Mexican newspapers don’t explain Mexico’ says journalist

Mexican newspaper publishers sell only three million newspapers a day in a country with a population of 106 million. Most Mexican journalists will tell you that Mexican’s don’t read because Mexican newspapers have yet to get round to the job of ‘explaining Mexico’, according to Ronald Buchanan, a Scottish freelance journalist based in Mexico City.

Snorkelling Cenotes – but can they be saved?

Read MexicoReporter.com’s dispatch for CNN Traveler on the Mayan Riviera’s cenotes here.

Punks Collect Downtown at El Chopo

El Chopo is a weekly fleamarket that has been going for 27 years in Mexico City. Punters can pick up anything from original Doc Marten boots to a copy of ‘London Calling’ by the Clash in the stalls that line the market streets.

English Newspaper Hits Streets of Mexico, Pledging Independence

English language newspaper The News hit the streets of Mexico City today after a five year hiatus.

‘Mexican Government is main perpetrator of violence against journalists in Mexico’, says human rights expert

‘The Mexican Government is one of the main perpetrators of violence against journalists in the country and complicit in its continuance,’ according to one of the country’s leading freedom of expression organisations.

Arena de Mexico mascara-seller makes nearly $1000 dollars on a good night

José Carmelo is 33 years old and has been working outside the Arena de Mexico selling mascaras for 20 years. He got into this line of work thought his brothers, who used to have another shop outside another lucha venue – el Toreo de Cuatro Caminos. Click on the picture for more photos.

MexicoReporter: What does the Tlatelolco Massacre mean today?

MexicoReporter interviewed Salvador Martinez dela Roca, a student leader at the time of the Tlateloloco Massacre, about his thoughts on what the tradegy means today and why people march.Watch the film below, and click here for more on Tlatelolco:

Mexico Remembers Massacre

Ana Ignacia Rodriguez Marquez, now in her sixties, stood in La Plaza de Las Tres Culturas on Tuesday this week, October 2nd, in the same place that she had stood nearly 40 years ago. It was from that very spot that she saw students, men, women and children gunned down by state police and officials just after 6pm on October 2nd, 1968 as they gathered in peaceful protest in what has become known as the Tlatelolco Massacre – one of the darkest episodes in Mexico’s modern history.

This week – like they do every year – Mexicans young and old gathered to march to the city’s central Zocalo in memory of the hundred who died that day. Scores of people milled around the vast concrete square that is overlooked by the 14-storey Chihuahua building from which the students back then addressed the crowd.

An Evening with Subcomandante Marcos

It was rather an unlikely setting for a press conference with one of the world’s most famous rebel leaders, Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista National Liberation Army(EZLN). Mexico City’s Casa Lamm, a cultural centre and converted mansion in the Roma neighbourhood is the kind of place you expect to see expats and well-off Mexican families breakfasting, not Mexico’s guerilla army making its latest political statement.

Arriving on time to a room packed with journalists, activists, fans and onlookers of all ages, Sub Marcos – or Delegado Cero (Delegate Zero) as he now prefers to be known – took his seat at the end of a long table, replete with microphones and tall glasses of water, preceded by other members of the EZLN, including Comandante Miriam and Comandante Zebedeo.