Brad Will ©AI
This week is the anniversary of the death of Brad Will, a US video journalist who was shot and killed in Mexico on October 27, 2006. When he was killed, Bradley Roland Will was in Oaxaca City, in southern Mexico, filming a clash between members of a local protest movement (Asamblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca, APPO) and supporters and officials of the local governing party. Three years later, Amnesty International believes that the truth about Brad Will’s death has still not come out. Juan Manuel Martínez, an APPO sympathizer, has been detained pending trial since October 2008 for Will’s murder. However, experts from Physicians for Human Rights and the National Human Rights Commission have concluded that Will was not shot at close range, and Martinez is said to have been standing right next to him when the shooting happened. Amnesty International believes the evidence against Martinez is flawed and he is a being used as a scapegoat.
The tragedy and injustice of Brad Will’s death and Juan Manuel Martínez’s unfounded prosecution are part of the failure to investigate and hold to account those responsible for widespread human rights violations committed in Oaxaca in 2006 and 2007.
In October 2009, Mexico’s National Supreme Court of Justice concluded that serious human rights violations were committed in Oaxaca state. It attributed responsibility for many abuses to some senior public officials, including the governor of Oaxaca state. The Court called for those responsible to be held to account, but the authorities have yet to respond.
Tell the Mexican government that it’s time for the killing of Brad Will to be impartially investigated and prosecuted on the basis of reliable evidence and according to international fair trial standards.
Thank you Bryna Subherwal for your timely focus on Brad Will 's murder.
It is very clear Juan Manuel Martinez has been framed by the very party which murderously attacked the Oaxaca people's movement that day & which targetted Will apparently for acting as witness & recording their criminal violence.
The framing of Martinez by the state authorities is in line with the way murder investigations are conducted today in Mexico, & the shabby & sordid way in which murder trials & convictions are "processed" in that land by the "law" & the "justus" system.
The involvement of RCMP personnnel from Canada in the targetting of Martinez as scapegoat points to the alignment & burgeoning coordination between the North American state systems today. Something is on the move, & crystallizing, here.A violent strike upon an indigenous people's movement in a Mexican state is followed by backup from the hemispheric rulers.
Thank you Bryna Subherwal for your timely focus on Brad Will ‘s murder.
It is very clear Juan Manuel Martinez has been framed by the very party which murderously attacked the Oaxaca people’s movement that day & which targetted Will apparently for acting as witness & recording their criminal violence.
The framing of Martinez by the state authorities is in line with the way murder investigations are conducted today in Mexico, & the shabby & sordid way in which murder trials & convictions are “processed” in that land by the “law” & the “justus” system.
The involvement of RCMP personnnel from Canada in the targetting of Martinez as scapegoat points to the alignment & burgeoning coordination between the North American state systems today. Something is on the move, & crystallizing, here.A violent strike upon an indigenous people’s movement in a Mexican state is followed by backup from the hemispheric rulers.
As to who really killed Will, there's no question. His murderers have long been clearly identified.
Morning after the killing, a frontpage photo in the Mexican national daily El Universal later spead around the world showed 4 Santa Lucia de Los Caminos policemen of the state security forces firing at Will from 35 meters away.
2 of these men were arrested immediately — Abel Zarate aka "El Chapulin" and Manuel Aguilar Coello aka "El Comandante".
They were simply & mysteriously released several days later.
That's how it goes in Mexico.
As to who really killed Will, there’s no question. His murderers have long been clearly identified.
Morning after the killing, a frontpage photo in the Mexican national daily El Universal later spead around the world showed 4 Santa Lucia de Los Caminos policemen of the state security forces firing at Will from 35 meters away.
2 of these men were arrested immediately — Abel Zarate aka “El Chapulin” and Manuel Aguilar Coello aka “El Comandante”.
They were simply & mysteriously released several days later.
That’s how it goes in Mexico.