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Mexico: The last moments of Bradley Roland Will

Sameer Padania · 21:07 · Middle East & North Africa , Americas

Journalism seems like a precarious profession to practise in Mexico. It's ranked by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist.

The latest tragic example of this came on Friday 27th October, in the southern state of Oaxaca, with the shooting of Brad Will. Brad was in Oaxaca as a journalist for New York City Indymedia, trying to get stories out about the protests in Oaxaca (for up-to-date accounts and context of the crisis in Oaxaca, read my GV colleague David Sasaki's latest post). While filming skirmishes between paramilitaries and protestors in Santa Lucia on Friday afternoon, Brad was shot in the abdomen and neck, and died from his injuries, prompting the CPJ to call on the government to investigate Will's death. Now Indymedia has released the tape that was in Brad's video camera when he was shot.

It's a sixteen-minute video with English subtitles, and beware, the last minute (from 15′30) is very difficult to watch. Click the picture below to launch the Quicktime video (there's a YouTube version without subtitles here).

There's more footage at Mexican opposition blog Hoy PG, which points to a piece of unidentified news footage of Brad Will shortly after he was shot - not for the faint-hearted.

It's a moot point whether these are human rights videos per se, but Brad's tape in particular ends so shockingly, and depicts with such brutal suddenness the risks run by those determined to bring human rights stories to light, that it demands to be seen. But as one of the blogs David Sasaki quotes had it, there's a balance to be struck between outrage at the killing of Brad Will, and at the mounting number of local deaths and injuries.

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Violence and Misinformation Abound in Oaxaca

David Sasaki · 19:20 · Americas

lingua → zht · zhs

The usually tranquil Southern Mexican tourist town of Oaxaca - with its large, shaded plaza and gallery-lined alleys - had transformed into a political pressure cooker over the past few months in what began as a seemingly routine teacher's strike in late May. The lid then blew straight off yesterday as Mexican federal police surrounded the city, battling protesters and students who barricaded themselves in Juarez University and around the city.

“Blockade” by Mediocre

Mark in Mexico, the director of an English language school in Oaxaca, has been covering the step-by-step escalation of violence with his typically relentless anti-leftist sardonicism. On Thursday Mark wrote that the “striking teachers union has voted to return to classrooms this coming Monday, October 30. It will be a short workweek in any case because of the Day of the Dead holiday on Thursday and Friday.”

On the same day, politically moderate news anchorwoman, Ana Maria Salazar noted on her blog that President Elect Felipe Calderón “condemned the take over of radio stations in Oaxaca by radical groups and he offered to take a firm stance to return the calm to that state. President Vicente Fox called on the people [of] Oaxaca, teachers and civil society to find a constructive solution to the Oaxaca conflict, since ‘time is running out.'” Salazar also reminded readers that APPO, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, had threatened to disrupt Felipe Calderón's December 1 inauguration if Oaxacan governor Ulises Ruiz was not removed from office.

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Arabisc: Sexual Harrassment and the Egyptian Blogosphere

Amira Al Hussaini · 14:21 · Middle East & North Africa

After a month of abstinence (from sex naturally) during daylight hours in the Holy month of Ramadhan, a mob of sex starved Egyptians decided to celebrate Eid by attacking and sexually harassing women on the streets of Cairo.

The first the incident was made public was during a television show, posted on You Tube by Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas. From what I gathered from reading blogs, women were attacked by mobs, who touched them up, hit them and tore off their clothes in the busy Cairo streets. While others were lucky to take refuge in shops, some were pulled out of taxis, where the orgy continued.

The mobs became more organized on the second day of Eid, following sporadic attacks on the first, with the police keeping a safe distance as if it wasn't their business.
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Voices from Zimbabwe

Zimpundit · 14:19 · Sub-Saharan Africa

Following recent reports chronicling the decline in Zimbabwe's HIV/AIDS prevalence, the spotlight has now been turned on to the effect anti-AIDS campaigns have wrought on traditional Zimbabwean morals and values:

Zimbabwe's lead in condom use and condom sale worldwide has produced mixed reactions, with some sections of society welcoming the development, while others see it as a sign of “moral decay”.

Zimbabwe is the leading country in Africa in male condom use and sales — selling over 163 million male condoms and 3,8 million female condoms over the past five years. The 163 million male condoms sold represent the highest figure in Africa, while the 3,8 million female condoms figure sold represents the highest number of female condoms sold in the world.

A total of 900 000 female condoms were sold in 2005 alone, representing the highest per capita in any programme in the world so far.

But in an entry decrying the absence of service by the Harare City Council, Taurai at Kubatana illustrates how deeply mired the the pro-condom message can sometimes be,

There are some garbage bins in Harare that display colorful adverts for Protector Plus condoms. Part of the advert reads, “What the smart guys are wearing”: a great message but what a pity that most of the bins are overflowing with garbage that hasn’t been collected for days.

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