http://deepdishwavesofchange.blogspot.com/2008/04/community-radio-producers-murdered-in.html
Community Radio Producers Murdered in Mexico
April 7th, 2008. Oaxaca, Mexico.
Two indigenous triqui women who worked at the community radio station
La
Voz que Rompe el Silencio (The Voice that Breaks the Silence), in the
autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala (Mixteca region), were shot
and murdered while on their way to Oaxaca city to participate in the
State Forum for the Defense of the Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca.
Three other people were injured.
According to the State Attorney General, the victims are Teresa
Bautista
Merino (24 years old) and Felícitas Martínez Sánchez (20 years old).
Francisco Vásquez Martínez (30 years old), his wife Cristina
Martínez
Flores (22 years old), and their son Jaciel Vásquez Martínez (three
years old) were also injured in the attack.
According to prelimary reports, the women had left the station, which
is
part of the Network of Indigenous Community Radio Stations of the
Southeast (Red de Radios Comunitarias Indígenas del Sureste), around
1:00 PM. They were travelling in a truck on their way to Oaxaca city,
but were ambushed on the outskirts of the community Llano Juarez.
The two community radio activists were supposed to coordinate the
working group for Community and Alternative Communication: Community
Radio, Video, Press, and Internet, at the State Forum for the Defense
of
the Rights of the People of Oaxaca, which was to begin the today
(Wednesday) in the auditorium of Seccion 22 of the teachers union in
Oaxaca. The Center for Community Support Working Together (CACTUS as
the
spanish acronym) released a communique denouncing the murders and
demanding that the state authorities investigate and punish those
responsible for the crime.
The state attorney general said that 20 bullet shells, caliber 7.62,
were found at the site of the murders, along with other arms including
an AK-47. People are encouraged to contact their local embassies and
consulates (or to organize demonstrations at their local embassies and
consulates) to express their condemnation of this paramilitary
repression of indigenous women and community media projects.