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Amnesty Asks Mexico for New Probe of Journalist’s Death
 EFE
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February 20, 2010
London – Amnesty International is urging the Mexican government to undertake a new investigation of the 2006 killing of U.S. journalist Brad Will now that a political activist falsely accused of the crime has been released from custody.
In a statement hailing the release of Juan Manuel Martinez, the London-based human rights organization said Mexican authorities should also probe the deaths of least 17 other people, most of them activists, during disturbances in the southern state of Oaxaca.
“This release was long overdue,” Kerrie Howard, AI’s deputy director for the Americas, said. “Juan Manuel has been used as a scapegoat by the Mexican authorities to claim there has been progress in the investigation around Brad Will’s death.”
Martinez’s arrest was the result of a “deeply flawed investigation” by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office, AI said, citing prosecutors’ conclusion that Will was shot at close range despite forensic evidence showing the shots were fired from further away.
Amnesty suggested the AG office rushed to indict Martinez after the U.S. Congress demanded progress in the case as a condition for approving anti-drug aid to Mexico.
The prosecution “prevented a proper investigation and ensured the real perpetrator of Brad Will’s killing is still at large,” Howard said, going on to demand that Mexican authorities ensure Martinez’s safety and compensate him for his wrongful imprisonment.
Juan Manuel Martinez is a member of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, or APPO, the grassroots coalition behind a months-long 2006 uprising against the state’s authoritarian governor, Ulises Ruiz.
Brad Will was gunned down on Oct. 27, 2006, while covering the events in Oaxaca for the indymedia collective.
Video from Will’s camera and photographs snapped by other journalists showed men subsequently identified as police officers and pro-Ruiz municipal officials firing guns in the direction of the American.
Despite the video and photos, Oaxaca’s attorney general, another Ruiz ally, declined to bring charges against the cops and officials.
The Oaxaca conflict began in May 2006 with a teachers’ strike.
The walkout’s transformation into a movement to oust Ruiz occurred on June 14 of that year, when police used force to break up a sit-in by strikers in the main square of Oaxaca city.
Ruiz was a polarizing figure even before the clash with the teachers, as many accused him of rigging the 2004 election that brought him to power in the impoverished, largely Indian-populated state.
The uprising against the governor was crushed by thousands of federal police and troops in November 2006, but not before a score of 20 people – mostly Ruiz opponents – had been killed and the protests had caused millions of dollars in lost tourism revenue for picturesque Oaxaca city.
Mexico’s Supreme Court last year issued a non-binding opinion that found Ruiz responsible for the violence and deaths. |
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