Activists Protest Jailing of Oaxaca Activist in Will Killing

And here in New York, a group of activists rallied outside the Mexican consulate Monday to protest the latest in the case of the slain American journalist Brad Will. Will was shot and killed on October 27, 2006, while covering the popular uprising in the Mexican province of Oaxaca. His own camera captured his shooting. Will’s family and friends have criticized the Mexican government for charging a Oaxaca activist with Will’s murder instead of state police forces. Last week, a Mexican judge reportedly ruled that the activist, Juan Moreno, can be held indefinitely and that hearsay evidence can be used against him. Mark Read, a friend of Brad Will, criticized Moreno’s prosecution.

    Mark Read: “Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno, the man falsely accused of Brad’s murder, is also a part of this movement, also a man of principle. That Brad’s murder is being used to railroad a fellow political activist is the most profound insult to his memory. And it is not the first time that his death has been used in such a way.”
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MEDIA ADVISORY * MEDIA ADVISORY * MEDIA ADVISORY

PROTEST AT MEXICAN CONSULATE!
FRIENDS OF SLAIN U.S. JOURNALIST BRAD WILL RESPOND TO RAILROADING OF OAXACA ACTIVIST JUAN MANUEL MARTINEZ MORENO!

WHAT: Protest against Mexican judicial corruption and the practice of impunity
WHERE: Mexican Consulate in New York City, 27 East 39th Street.
WHEN:  4:00pm Monday July 13th
WHO: Friends of Brad Will

Contact:
Mark Read: 917-776-8847
Harry Bubbins: 646-648-4362
Spanish Speaking Contact:
Salvador Pantoja: 646-257-6178

July 13th, NYC--On Wednesday, July 8th, Judge Rosa Perez reversed course from her January ruling. She now accepts hearsay testimony previously determined to be “deficient” as factual evidence in the case against local activist Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno for the 2006 murder of U.S. journalist Brad Will.  It was also ruled that Moreno will remain indefinitely imprisoned pending a verdict in his case.

The case is being closely monitored by international human rights organization such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and was even singled out by the U.S. Congress when they passed the funding bill for the Merida Initiative in July 2008, calling in that bill for “progress in conducting a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation to identify the perpetrators of this crime and bring them to justice.”

Despite an independent report from Physicians for Human Rights debunking the government’s case against Moreno, and a condemnation of the case by Mexico’s own National Commission for Human Rights, the government has refused to investigate the most likely suspects—Mexican government officials who were videotaped and photographed openly firing on protesters, including Will. Instead, the judge has accepted the testimony of two “witnesses” that, according to their own words, were not present at the murder of Brad Will.   These two “witnesses” are the heart of the case against Moreno.

“The Mexican government has to come up with a conviction in Brad’s case because the U.S. Congress told them they had to,” says Mark Read, a friend of Will’s.  “If they want those U.S. taxpayer dollars, they have to put somebody away, but the real killers walk around with impunity while the government proceeds with this bogus case against one of the people that Brad was there trying to report on, an activist who rose up against corrupt government rule. This recent reversal makes it pretty clear that the Mexican government intends to railroad Moreno despite all the best evidence. It’s corruption, pure and simple.”

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Statement for the Press July 13th 2009

Hello my name is Mark Read, I am a filmmaker and a professor at New York University and Brad Will was a friend of mine.

As a friend I have been sickened, as his family has been sickened, by the ways in which Brad’s murder has been used by the Mexican government to further brutalize, intimidate and imprison the very people with whom Brad stood in solidarity in 2006.

Brad was a journalist and he traveled to Oaxaca as a journalist.  He was also an activist, and he considered himself a part of a global movement for peace and justice.  This movement went by many names in many places, but everywhere it made and continues to make the same demands: for a more direct and responsive democracy, for a safe place to make an honest wage for honest work, for clean air and water, for freedom to say what needs to be said, and to go where one needs to go,   for the self-determination of  communities and individuals; for an end to war and the creation of a just peace.

Brad lived his life according to these principles and in service to this movement.  Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno, the man falsely accused of his murder, is also a part of this movement, also a man of principal.  That Brad’s murder is being used to railroad a fellow political activist is the most profound of insults to his memory.  And it is not the first time that his death has been used in such a way.

In 2006 the people of Oaxaca rose up to assert these demands in the face of a corrupt governor, Ulises-Ruiz-Ortiz.  In the ensuing conflict, at least 23 Oaxacan Citizens were murdered, Brad among them.  Brad’s murder drew international attention to the conflict, and then-president Vicente Fox, rather than listen to the people of Oaxaca, used Brad’s murder as a pretext to send in the army and crush the popular movement there.

In July of 2008, a funding appropriations bill was passed by the U.S. Congress, authorizing funds for the Merida Initiative.  Due to pressure brought to bear by such groups as Amnesty International,  Human Rights Watch, and the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the tireless work of Brad’s family and friends, language was included in that bill that called upon the state department to report on the progress of the investigation into Brad Will’s murder, and ensure that a credible investigation took place.

Many, if not most of us thought that this was a positive development at the time, and that this would force the Mexican government to investigate the likely killers- the men seen clearly on Brad’s final tape, openly firing in his direction.  But instead of an investigation, the Mexican government has continued to pursue the railroading of a political activist.  In fact, the pressure of the language in the funding bill seems only to have accelerated that railroading process, in order for Mexico to receive the promised funds.

Last week, on Wednesday July 8th, the federal judge in Brad’s case, Rosa Ileana Noriega Perez, chose to accept as factual evidence the testimony of Alfredo Feria Perez, Miriam Alicia Montaño, and Carol Ivan.  In January the same testimony was determined, by the same judge, as in need of “correction”. Unless it was corrected, she ruled, the detention of Moreno was unconstitutional.  She threw this back to the lower court, telling them to rectify the situation or let Moreno go.

We feel that this demonstrates a clear intent to accept and validate a concocted case against Moreno, and that the Judge will move soon to convict and sentence this innocent man to decades in prison.

This may clear the channel for the flow of U.S. taxpayer dollars into the coffers of Mexican security forces, but it will not serve justice, and it will only bring further insult to those who grieve the loss of Brad Will and seek accountability for his murder.