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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | January 2006 
Thousands March Against Crime in Border City of Tijuana
 Associated Press
| | A small banner sits amid white balloons during a rally to protest rising crime on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2006 in Tijuana, Mexico. About 1500 people rallied next to city and state government buildings to call attention to recent spikes in crime such as murders and kidnappings. The banner has a photo of Sara Benazir, a teenager who was killed as she was thrown from a car during a botched kidnapping. (AP Photo/David Maung) |
Tijuana, Mexico - About 1,500 people dressed in white marched through this border city Sunday to pressure the government to crack down on violent crimes such as kidnappings and murders.
Throwing white balloons in the air, the demonstrators, many of whom were businessmen, said that Tijuana has got more dangerous in the last two years, despite the 2004 election of Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon who campaigned with promises he would clean up the crime-ridden streets.
"I can't understand why there are so many kidnappings," said Saul Salgado, whose brother in law was kidnapped last June and is still missing. "I came here to pressure the government to do its job."
Tijuana resident Silma Juncua, 22, said that her 29-year old boyfriend Jose Fernandez was killed by robbers in December. She had planned had planned to marry him this year.
"I came here to express my pain and my anger and in a way to remember him," Juncua said.
In a news conference following the march, Tijuana General Secretary Fernando Castro, Hank Rhon's chief aide, said the city government will investigate why there are so many kidnappings and may purge the police department.
"If we find out the police aren't doing their job we will clean them out at all levels," Castro said.
The Tijuana demonstration echoed a march larger march in Mexico City in 2004, when 250,000 people, many dressed in white, marched against crime across the country. |
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