15 Sep 2011 | Americas, Mexico
The butchered bodies of a young man and a woman were found on Tuesday hanging from freeway overpass in Nuevo Laredo, Taumalipas on the US-Mexico border. Two hand-scribbled cardboard placards were left beside the bodies as a warning for Twitter and Facebook users reporting violent incidents online and through social media networks. The women’s body had been disembowelled and the ears and fingers were symbolically mutilated.
“This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the internet,” one sign said. “You better (expletive) pay attention. I’m about to get you.” The placards listed two specific sites which track drug crime Al Rojo Vivo and Blog del Narco and according to a spokesman from the state attorney’s office, the signs accused the unidentified victims of denouncing drug-related violence. The note was signed with the letter Z, suggesting the murders were the work of the Zetas, the organised crime syndicate which controls large parts of Taumalipas.
Maria Elena Meneses, social media expert at the Tecnologico de Monterrey, said that this new attack underscored the importance that social media has in Mexican regions with drug related violence. “People tweet and use Facebook in these areas because they feel abandoned by local government officials who cannot provide them with security, and the local news media which cannot inform,” she said. “To tweet is to mitigate uncertainty.”
A 2010 study on media and violence by the Fundacion de Periodismo de Investigacion (MEPI) found that the news media in the city of Nuevo Laredo exercised 100 per cent self censorship. In one incident, on the day that a mass grave was found with the bodies of 72 migrant workers, the Taumalipas daily El Mañana chose to run a front page story about a woman beating her young daughter instead. As drug cartels silence the press, locals have turned to social media to hear and share the news, an option it its clear that organised crime is now keen to shut-down.
13 Sep 2011 | Uncategorized
The state of North Carolina has about 100 different specialty plate designs, allowing citizens to use their license plate to proclaim their love for square dancing, NASCAR, or even watermelon. North Carolinians against abortion can now share their views in traffic jams, since the General Assembly passed a proposed license plate that features the slogan “Choose Life” earlier this year. Pro-choice drivers who want to display their views on their car are out of luck, their licence slogans rejected by the General Assembly.
The North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a federal lawsuit against the state on 8 September 2011, calling for the license plate to be blocked because it violates the First Amendment, as it only allows for the representation of one perspective. Six amendments were proposed to the bill, adding a plate which had a messages such as “Respect Choice”. According to Katherine Lewis Parker, legal director of the NC chapter of ACLU, the decision to only approve the pro-life message is unconstitutional because it provides “a forum to one side of the argument”.
The specialty plate was approved by the legislature on 18 June, and signed into law on 30 June. In a statement, the ACLU said that they were suing “on behalf of North Carolinians seeking a specialty license plate that supports a woman’s right to reproductive freedom”. Republican Mitch Gillespie, who had promoted the anti-abortion plate, has dismissed the ACLU suit, telling the Raleigh News & Observer that the union is “an evil liberal organization to try to appease its liberal base.”
13 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Oregon’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal made by a convicted stalker. John Norman Ryan began stalking a woman in 2005, eventually she took out a stalking protective order which forbade Ryan from making any contact. Ryan breached the order and was convicted by the courts. He appealed on the grounds that as the communication was not violent, he was expressing his First Amendment right to free speech. The judges ruled against him.
12 Sep 2011 | Uncategorized
Italian journalists face in serious difficulties investigating organised crime and links with business. Cecilia Anesi reports from a conference highlighting the issue
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