Category Archives: BREAKING NEWS

TAKE ACTION TODAY: CALL Senator Leahy: (202) 224-4242

As the second most Senior Senator and the Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, Senator Leahy has the power to influence President Obama’s discussions with the President of Mexico, a major recipient of US military aid. He is very familiar with Brad Will’s case and will respond if he hears from enough of us.

He’s getting a lot of calls. Make one quick call asap to make sure he acts.

Tell Senator Leahy you want him to urge President Obama to do two things during his trip to Mexico:

1) Mention Brad Will’s name publicly: Raise to Mexican President Nieto publicly the lack of sound prosecution of the shooters who murdered Brad Will and

2) Demand accountability for the murder of Brad Will and other journalists: To insist that accountability for his murder, and the murder of other journalists, mostly Mexican, who had, before they were killed, been publishing stories of corruption and brutality by top Mexican government officials, be achieved promptly and transparently.

BACKGROUND

Brad Will was murdered in broad daylight over six years ago. There were many witnesses. Mexican government officials, at least four of them, were identified as the shooters. Yet only two were questioned by the Mexican prosecutor’s office and both let go without charge.

Six years later, Brad Will’s murder casts a cloud over all journalists in Mexico as they become increasingly targeted and murdered, often when they dare to cover the widespread collusion between Mexican Government authorities and the narco-cartels.

President Obama is heading to Mexico on Thursday. He has vastly increased far beyond President Bush’s initial ‘drug war’ funding military aid to the Mexican security forces. He has done this despite widespread opposition to the ‘drug war’ as a failed policy, predictably entrenching cartels and deepening corruption, and despite the support for legalization from many Heads of State and from the American people. In the United States this same policy continues to see millions of arrests of petty offenders and addicts, but a complete lack of enforcement of criminal penalties against powerful interests like HSBC which laundered drug cartel money.

TAKE ACTION: CALL Senator Leahy today: (202) 224-4242

Most importantly, President Obama has continued to supply weaponry to unaccountable civilian government and security forces, despite a lack of credible law enforcement cooperation or accountability for the murder of a US citizen, for more than six years. Finally, when a US journalist is murdered by agents of a government  considered ‘friendly’ by the US government, the silence of top US officials sends a dangerous message to journalists everywhere.