SEMANA News is Houston’s largest weekly Spanish-language newspaper focusing on issues relevant to the Hispanic community since 1992 with a circulation of 140,000.
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Friends of Brad WIll attended the NYU Conference: Many Yeses, One No: Confronting Corporate Globalization
As the anniversary of the Seattle protests against the WTO approaches,
the world economic system- a system whose logic and shape has been
defined by neoliberal economic theory- is in ruins, and the United
States has elected a new president that many people hope and expect
will bring about “real Change.” (more…)
On Monday October 27th 2008, the 2nd anniversary of Brad’s murder, Friends of Brad Will in Mexico, New York, Houston, San Francisco, and Portland held press conferences and rallies to publicize our cause and our new demands.
In New York, Free Speech Radio News covered the hunger strike and protest. Photos are online at nyc.indymedia.org.
In Houston, activists met with press and representatives from the Consulate. Read: Houston Indymedia coverage, hear: KPFT radio news coverage.
In San Francisco, Friends of Brad Will gathered at the Mexican Consulate to remember Brad and the people of Oaxaca and issued a statement of demands to the Mexican Consulate. Coverage on indybay.
In Portland, The Friends of Brad Will, along with supporters of Oaxaca, gathered in front of the Mexican Consulate to call for justice in the case of Brad Will’s murder by Mexican paramilitaries, and justice for the people of Oaxaca. Coverage on Portland Indymedia.
In Mexico, actions were covered in El Universal (in Spanish), and the LA Times blog.
In Uruguay, activists issued a solidarity statement (in Spanish).
Ed. this is a strong statement, well-worth the read for briefings to U.S. govt. reps. RJ
http://www.cndh.org.mx/recomen/2008/050.html
Recommendation 050/2008
National Human Rights Commission issued on September 26, 2008
Translated by Scott Campbell [Spanish original]
Summary: On October 27, 2006, Mr. Bradley Roland Will, video journalist for the business Indymedia, was deprived of life, and due to this, on the 28th of that month and year personnel from the National Commission went to the city of Oaxaca, Oaxaca, to gather pertinent information and documentation, in respect to the beginnings of preliminary investigation 1247/C.R./2006 by the Attorney General’s Office of the state of Oaxaca.
From the analysis of the facts and evidence that make up case file 2006/4886/5/Q, it was verified that the public servants of the Attorney General’s Office of the state of Oaxaca who participated in compiling preliminary investigation 1247/C.R./2006, as well as those in the Federal Attorney General’s Office charged with compiling enquiry 11/FEADP/07, based in the Special Prosecutor for Attention to Crimes Committed Against Journalists, violated fundamental rights of legality, of judicial security, of access to justice, according to information contained in articles 6; 14, second paragraph; 16, first paragraph; 17, second paragraph; 20, subsection B; 21, first paragraph; and 102, subsection A, second paragraph, of the Constitution of the United Mexican States, as well as 21 of the Constitution of the state of Oaxaca. (more…)
By David Gonzalez for NY Times
Harry Bubbins likes to plant things. When his friend Bradley Will was shot dead covering antigovernment protests in Mexico nearly two years ago, he planted a tree in the South Bronx to honor the slain journalist. This week, days after the Mexican government arrested two leftist protesters in connection with Mr. Will’s murder, Mr. Bubbins is again planting things.
Himself, on a Midtown sidewalk.
In an admittedly extreme move to draw attention to what he — and numerous human rights groups — say is a cover-up by Mexican authorities, Mr. Bubbins is on a four-day hunger strike outside the Third Avenue office of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
More
CALL U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton at her office:
(212) 688-6262 (see talking points/demands, below)
Harry Bubbins (hunger-striker) reports that she was in the office this a.m.
You don’t have to live in NY to make this crucial phone call!
Stop by the vigil at 780 Third Ave (between 48th & 49th St.) Manhattan
Friends of Brad Will are in their 2nd day of a 4-day round-the-clock vigil and Hunger Strike at Sen. Hillary Clinton’s office (no food, no drink, no water)
Remembering Brad Will (1970-2006)
New York journalist assassinated in Oaxaca, Mexico
by right-wing paramilitary death squads
Friends of Brad Will, including human rights advocates Robert Jereski and Harry Bubbins, will be engaging in a 4-day vigil and fast as part of an international “Week of Action and Remembrance” of our friend Brad Will, to call attention to the Mexican government’s cover-up of the U.S. journalist’s murder and in opposition to Senator Hillary Clinton’s support for U.S. funding for Mexico’s military operations under Plan Mexico (the “Merida Initiative”).
The vigil will last for 4 days and nights outside Senator Clinton’s office. It is calling on Sen. Clinton to order protection for witnesses who saw Mexican government paramilitaries shooting at demonstrators, including Brad Will, in Oaxaca, and who are currently being threatened by Mexican Authorities. (more…)
By John Gibler
On October 27, 2006, Brad Will stood on Juarez Avenue in the municipality of Santa Lucia del Camino, Oaxaca, Mexico. He was filming a violent clash between armed, civilian-clad municipal police and officials and members of the Oaxaca Peoples’ Popular Assembly, or APPO
Brad, a longtime New York City activist and independent journalist, traveled to Oaxaca in early October 2006 to report on the protest movement led by the state teachers union that sought to oust governor Ulises Ruiz of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had ruled Oaxaca with an iron fist for almost 80 years.
Brad stood amid the APPO protesters and other journalists, filming down the length of Juarez Avenue where armed officials were firing at the protesters. Brad was shot and fell to the ground, his camera still running, having recorded the sound of the shot that hit him. Brad was shot from straight on, just below the chest, and yet his killer does not appear in the camera frame at the moment of the gunshot. Brad died on the way to the hospital. He had been shot twice.
Two years later, on October 16, 2008, the Mexican federal government arrested two members of the APPO, charging Juan Manuel Martinez as the gunman and Octavio Perez with helping to cover up Brad’s murder (Perez was later released on bail). Federal police were still looking for other suspected accomplices, all members of the APPO who had tried to carry Brad to safety and save his life.
The arrests came after a series of human rights reports criticized the government’s investigation for failing to follow leads pointing to local officials who were widely photographed by the press shooting at APPO protesters on October 27, 2006.
“It is such a coverup,” said Kathy Will, Brad’s mother, in a telephone interview on learning of the arrests. “It is an insult to us and to all of the groups that have tried to help with a meaningful investigation.”
Nick Cooper went to Mexico City to receive an award for Brad and he was interviewed twice — once before his trip by a radio station in Phoenix, and also during his trip on KPFT Houston.
