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 MartÃnez, 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 MartÃnez’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.