Monday, February 6, 2012

MEXICAN COPS HARASSING JOURNALIST - But Then LA RAZA Hates Freedom of Speech


Posted: 05 Feb 2012 07:43 PM PST

The municipal police in the border city of Juarez are increasingly taking to bullying reporters. Unlike some border towns (Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros), Juarez has a fairly thriving press with a corps of brave and feisty journalists. But the police seem to have been given a green light to begin pushing journalists around. The move recent case came Friday night. According to an account in El Diario, reporter Joel Gonzalez arrived at a street sign where police had stopped a Hummer with Texas license plates and detained a woman who was driving.
When Gonzalez approached police and began asking questions, they arrested him and accused him of interfering. The El Diario story quoted Gonzalez on what happened next:
"The cop said to me: 'I'm going to teach you to respect this badge, so that you know who we are; we are the Municipal Police. Do you think it would be a big deal for me to just kill you? I would kill you if I wanted to. And I said to him: 'You can't do anything to me because I haven't committed any crime.' And then he said to me: 'As far as I'mconcerned you are just a f---ing criminal, the minute I bring you here in the patrol car, you are nothing but a f---ing criminal," said Gonzalez.
Gonzalez was finally freed but only after being required to pay 320 pesos, or about $25.
El Diario cites several other cases of police bullying of journalists in the city. The most recent case before Gonzalez occurred last Tuesday. When Proceso Magazine photographer Raymundo Ruiz arrived at a house where police were arresting three people, the newspaper said Ruiz was hit in the face, leaving him bleeding from the mouth and nose.
Just two days earlier, two reporters from the Norte newspaper found themselves on the unfriendly end of police weapons. Police ordered one at gunpoint to erase images that he'd taken of them.
Homicides have fallen sharply in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas, but it's coming at some cost.

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