Youths get 15 years for murder of feminist activist in Mexico

Patrick2010

Anyone interested in the drugs war in Mexico will find interesting info here...
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/

Airitech

Oranage2 wrote: »

maybe it comes down to that we don't really know anything about Mexico, central America and south America, though we'd have at least a little information on former countries of the British empire.

It think this has a lot to do with it. The UK would have an interest in Indian affairs, given the size if the Indian community there and it being a former colony.

Because we have such exposure to British media we were made more aware of it than we would otherwise have been.

old hippy

smash wrote: »

Speaking for myself. I get quite bored of opening up the forum to headlines about some morbid shít that happened over the other side of the world.

It's a tricky one alright. I don't wish to be morbid, posting a thread like this.

I don't know, sometimes certain sections of boards seem parochial with the same old faces (myself included) posting on any number of similar topics.

I'd post some happy "and finally in the news tonight" stuff but I rather think people prefer to discuss the angsty stuff.

Oranage2

Nodin wrote: »

I think a woman getting on a bus in a busy city and being gang raped, then killed by having a metal bar rammed up her anus repeatedly would register on a great number of radars.

No you'd be wrong there, look at some central African countries, fathers forced to rape their daughters, kids being raped on their way to school.

Also gang rapes are very common in central and south American,
We hear very little of this.

Czarcasm

Nodin wrote: »

The rape and murder of women in that town is notorious, even in mexico. You might do some research on the matter.

It's surely not as notorious as you might think then if you have to tell somebody to research the issue? I'd certainly never heard of a small town in Mexico before now. I see violence closer to home as an issue we should look at before we start worrying about issues halfway round the world.

In saying that, Boards.ie is an Irish based website aimed at an Irish audience, bad shìt happens all over the world on a daily basis, one can't fix the world, but one can make a good start by concerning oneself with what happens in their own back garden so to speak, before concerning themselves with what is happening on the other side of the world.

old hippy

Czarcasm wrote: »

one can't fix the world, but one can make a good start by concerning oneself with what happens in their own back garden so to speak, before concerning themselves with what is happening on the other side of the world.

The world belongs to all of us. It's not a crime to care. It'd be a crime not to.

Airitech

Oranage2 wrote: »

No you'd be wrong there, look at some central African countries, fathers forced to rape their daughters, kids being raped on their way to school.

Also gang rapes are very common in central and south American,
We hear very little of this.

We don't have sufficient ties with those countries through culture language or people to generate enough interest among Irish people. The media, who are in the business of selling papers or advertising time, don't see it as lucrative enough to report on.

Social media is changing that now but there still has to some connection or angle for us to take notice. Rightly or wrongly, something terrible happening to someone somewhere on the planet often isn't enough.

Nodin

Czarcasm wrote: »

It's surely not as notorious as you might think then if you have to tell somebody to research the issue?
I'd certainly never heard of a small town in Mexico before now.
.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2003_44_fri_02.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12177543

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/mexico-drugs-death-squads-juarez

Czarcasm wrote: »

I see violence closer to home as an issue we should look at before we start worrying about issues halfway round the world.

.

Good fer you. Here's a biccy.

Czarcasm

old hippy wrote: »

The world belongs to all of us. It's not a crime to care. It'd be a crime not to.

I completely agree with you old hippy in that respect.

So, what have you done today to effect a change for the better in your own community?

My name is URL

Oranage2 wrote: »

No you'd be wrong there, look at some central African countries, fathers forced to rape their daughters, kids being raped on their way to school.

Also gang rapes are very common in central and south American,
We hear very little of this.

I don't understand why people use this line of reasoning. Just because something is common, or happens more in one area than another; doesn't mean that an individual case is not newsworthy or remarkable.

Most people don't go searching the internet for the most brutal stories of the day. If it's something they read about in the course of their day then they'll tend to discuss it. Part of the issue is that more often than not, these kind of stories don't make it into the news-streams of most people in developed countries. Hell.. most of the time it would barely make national news in whatever country it is.

You can't really blame people for that, or use it a means of playing down those stories that people are aware of. There's nothing at all bad about incidents like this being made known to wide audiences.. it'd be worse if we all lived in a state of blissful ignorance.

Oranage2

My name is URL wrote: »

I don't understand why people use this line of reasoning. Just because something is common, or happens more in one area than another; doesn't mean that an individual case is not newsworthy or remarkable.

Most people don't go searching the internet for the most brutal stories of the day. If it's something they read about in the course of their day then they'll tend to discuss it. Part of the issue is that more often than not, these kind of stories don't make it into the news-streams of most people in developed countries. Hell.. most of the time it would barely make national news in whatever country it is.

You can't really blame people for that, or use it a means of playing down those stories that people are aware of. There's nothing at all bad about incidents like this being made known to wide audiences.. it'd be worse if we all lived in a state of blissful ignorance.

I don't know how you got any of that from my post, someone said horrific gang rape would register on a number of radars, I was just pointing out that they don't.


Don't get me wrong I agree with your post.

Czarcasm

Nodin wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2003_44_fri_02.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12177543

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/mexico-drugs-death-squads-juarez

Thanks Nodin, any chance you could find me a link in the media about the two eight year old girls I talked to yesterday while waiting for the bus who told me all about what they get up to with their eleven year old "boyfriends", "because there's nothing else to do around here".

Two hours later I had a friend of mine who works in Smyths Toy Stores deliver out a couple of outdoor play sets and some footballs. Didn't cost me a whole pile and it gave them something else to do besides being holed up in burned out houses having sex.

Good fer you. Here's a biccy.

Don't even get me started about biscuits! I gave the cleaner money yesterday to get some decent chocolate biscuits for the office because all they had when I looked in the press was them rich tea crap. My boss out there had a shìt fit.

I hope she doesn't find out who was responsible for giving the swings and footballs to the children, seeing as they're not covered by insurance either, be terrible if they grazed their knees like while the council dragged it's heels over a playground that's still only in the planning stages!

Nodin

Czarcasm wrote: »

Thanks Nodin, (.....)besides being holed up in burned out houses having sex.!

Do us a favour, oul flower, and tell me why you feel the need to slag off people who are moved by a particular story (and don't tell me you're not).

After ye've done that, you might tell me how you think its appropriate to use a murder to blow your own trumpet.

Czarcasm

Nodin wrote: »

Do us a favour, oul flower, and tell me why you feel the need to slag off people who are moved by a particular story (and don't tell me you're not).

I'm not slagging anyone off Nodin. I'm simply pointing out that people should be more concerned about things they CAN change, rather than things they can't. That whole Kony2012 thing, who gives a shìt about that now, after the huge facebook campaign, etc?

If the OP had been worded differently to get a discussion started about the issue of violence against women and used the story as an example, then I might have understood they wanted to have a discussion about the issue, and not just "random news article plucked from the àrsehole of nowhere". Anyone could type "violence against women" into google now and come up with at least a thousand international articles from places very few have ever heard of. You could fill AH in a matter of minutes with individual threads for each individual case.

Did you mean I wasn't moved by the story, or for me not to deny I was slagging people off? I wasn't slagging people off, nor have I read the story, nor the articles you linked to. It happened in Mexico, there's fùckall I can do about it.

After ye've done that, you might tell me how you think its appropriate to use a murder to blow your own trumpet.

Nodin you're WAY off there, I was giving an example of how little effort it actually takes to effect change within your own community, as distinct from getting all indignant about something I can do nothing about.

I think it's best we leave it there rather than derail the thread any further with a petty squabble.

Nodin

Czarcasm wrote: »

I'm not slagging anyone off Nodin. ......

What did I say about not coming back and saying you weren't? Its exactly what you're at.

Czarcasm wrote: »

Nodin you're WAY off there......

emmm...no. I'd say I was bang on. As evidence I present

Thanks Nodin, any chance you could find me a link in the media about the two eight year old girls I talked to yesterday while waiting for the bus who told me all about what they get up to with their eleven year old "boyfriends", "because there's nothing else to do around here".

Two hours later I had a friend of mine who works in Smyths Toy Stores deliver out a couple of outdoor play sets and some footballs. Didn't cost me a whole pile and it gave them something else to do besides being holed up in burned out houses having sex.

and - as if we hadn't been impressed enough - we had more

I hope she doesn't find out who was responsible for giving the swings and footballs to the children, seeing as they're not covered by insurance either, be terrible if they grazed their knees like while the council dragged it's heels over a playground that's still only in the planning stages!

...just to ram home the point.

SeanW

Nodin wrote: »

The rape and murder of women in that town is notorious, even in mexico. You might do some research on the matter.

I don't doubt it - I don't disagree that Juarez is a violent hellhole with murder (of both genders IIRC) being off the charts.

My question for old-hippy was this: the crime in question appears to be gender blind.
3 drunken gang members claim to be gang members, victim confronts them (unarmed and unprotected) claiming to be an undercover cop. So the 3 gangsters kill the victim.

How does the fact that the victim was a woman make it specifically a gender issue? The victim could just easily have been a man, the killers would have killed him just the same. How does the victims gender make this case different?

My name is URL

SeanW wrote: »

I don't doubt it - I don't disagree that Juarez is a violent hellhole with murder (of both genders IIRC) being off the charts.

My question for old-hippy was this: the crime in question appears to be gender blind.
3 drunken gang members claim to be gang members, victim confronts them (unarmed and unprotected) claiming to be an undercover cop. So the 3 gangsters kill the victim.

How does the fact that the victim was a woman make it specifically a gender issue? The victim could just easily have been a man, the killers would have killed him just the same. How does the victims gender make this case different?

Because she was obviously targeted because of her gender, and her attempts to throw light on the overall issue of violence against women?

Asking why her gender is important or pertinent is like asking why a black person's plight was more notable or concerning than the plight of white men during times of segregation. The overriding factor being that one group is predominantly overwhelmingly responsible for the persecution / abuses of the other.

Czarcasm

Nodin wrote: »

...just to ram home the point.

Nodin will you stop, you're taking me up completely wrong. My point was, and still is, that we can fill AH with threads about individual cases like that in the OP, but before one does that, and I have no doubt old hippy or yourself care about the world and care about people, so what have you done CLOSER TO HOME, before you concerned yourself with what happens in a town in Mexico?

Carlos Orange

Nodin wrote: »

The rape and murder of women in that town is notorious, even in mexico. You might do some research on the matter.

I googled and it seems 90% of the people murdered there in the 90s were men.
Is it different now?

Sometimes I get this weird vibe off society that crime against men is kind of like crime against criminals. If some drug dealer tops another drug dealer a lot of people aren't bothered as long as no civilians are involved.

Pompey Magnus

My name is URL wrote: »

Because she was obviously targeted because of her gender, and her attempts to throw light on the overall issue of violence against women?

According to the court case she was killed because of what she claimed her profession was (an undercover police officer), not because she was a woman. In that case the topic of the thread should have been the issue of violence against law enforcement officers in Mexico.

riffmongous

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

According to the court case she was killed because of what she claimed her profession was (an undercover police officer), not because she was a woman. In that case the topic of the thread should have been the issue of violence against law enforcement officers in Mexico.

But was she actually a police officer? I only ever see her described as an activist

Pompey Magnus

psinno wrote: »

I googled and it seems 90% of the people murdered there in the 90s were men.
Is it different now?

Sometimes I get this weird vibe off society that crime against men is kind of like crime against criminals. If some drug dealer tops another drug dealer a lot of people aren't bothered as long as no civilians are involved.

An interesting article from the Canadian scholar on modern genocide Adam Jones, on the topic of the one sided reporting of the victims of Ciudad Juarez based on gender:

The Murdered Men of Ciudad Juárez

He points out that there is an automatic assumption among many that when a man is killed he must have done something to deserve it, the equivalent mindset as held by those who assume a girl who was raped must have provoked her rapist somehow.

Pompey Magnus

riffmongous wrote: »

But was she actually a police officer? I only ever see her described as an activist

No she wasn't but she told the boys she was with that she was after they told her they were in a criminal gang and they supposedly panicked and killed her.

Patrick2010

riffmongous wrote: »

But was she actually a police officer? I only ever see her described as an activist

3 guys kill a woman , cutting her hand off in the process and claim she told them she was a cop and they had been drinking and paniced after hearing what she said. Believeable?
A woman who would have been on high alert as she knew she was being targeted for her human rights campaign is hardly going to head off somewhere with a bunch of guys she's just met for drinks.
Most likely story is she was picked up by these guys who had targeted her.

Pompey Magnus

Patrick2010 wrote: »

Most likely story is she was picked up by these guys who had targeted her.

The state attorney general has said her death had nothing to do with her role as an activist and she was not targetted.

K-9

Czarcasm wrote: »

It's surely not as notorious as you might think then if you have to tell somebody to research the issue? I'd certainly never heard of a small town in Mexico before now. I see violence closer to home as an issue we should look at before we start worrying about issues halfway round the world.

In saying that, Boards.ie is an Irish based website aimed at an Irish audience, bad shìt happens all over the world on a daily basis, one can't fix the world, but one can make a good start by concerning oneself with what happens in their own back garden so to speak, before concerning themselves with what is happening on the other side of the world.

I never could get that line of reasoning, it's a bit like saying we shouldn't have bothered about Apartheid because we'd our own discriminatory society in Northern Ireland to worry about.

It's odd that the whataboutery comes out on a thread about a feminist activist, well actually it isn't odd, par for the course.

Patrick2010

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

The state attorney general has said her death had nothing to do with her role as an activist and she was not targetted.

So?. Mexican justice system is notoriously corrupt. How would the AG know that?

SeanW

My name is URL wrote: »

Because she was obviously targeted because of her gender, and her attempts to throw light on the overall issue of violence against women?

But she was not - if my understanding is correct - she was killed because she told 3 drunken gangbangers that she was an undercover cop, not because of her gender. They killed her for reasons that had nothing whatosever to do with gender, i.e. they didn't want an undercover cop turning them into the police.

Asking why her gender is important or pertinent is like asking why a black person's plight was more notable or concerning than the plight of white men during times of segregation.

How so? If a black man was murdered because he went on a civil rights march, then indeed that's a racial issue. But, for example, a black man is killed in a random drive by shooting or by one of those crazy gunmen in the US that shot up schools and cinemas, how is that a racial issue?

The overriding factor being that one group is predominantly overwhelmingly responsible for the persecution / abuses of the other.

Ciudad Juarez is a ****hole for everyone, men and women, as evidenced above the rate of murdered men dramatically outnumbers those of women.

Madam_X

Terry1985 wrote: »

maybe we can sign a petition, hold hands and thank each other for pretending to be upset by it.

People who accuse others of "pretending to be upset" actually mean that they personally don't give a sh1t and therefore it isn't possible that anyone else does.

Oranage2 wrote: »

No you'd be wrong there, look at some central African countries, fathers forced to rape their daughters, kids being raped on their way to school.

Also gang rapes are very common in central and south American,
We hear very little of this.

K-9 wrote: »

It's odd that the whataboutery comes out on a thread about a feminist activist, well actually it isn't odd, par for the course.

I know what you mean, but at the same time, I can see people's point here - it doesn't appear that she was murdered due to being a woman, rather due to being in the wrong place with extremely dangerous, violent people and saying the wrong things. I'm not a fan of factoring in the anti women angle when there isn't any evidence for it. It fosters an "us and them" feeling for some men, and takes away from the genuine cases of gender-based violence. It seems the violence against women is being factored in here because she is a feminist, but where is the evidence that that is why she was killed?

It reminds me of cases of violence from whites to non whites and the question of racially motivated being bandied about. Now I know it can be because of racism, but not always. It can be simply a senseless attack that the attackers would also carry out on whites if they were the ones in the wrong place at the wrong time. Again, takes away from true cases of racism to try and find it when there isn't any...

Czarcasm

K-9 wrote: »

I never could get that line of reasoning, it's a bit like saying we shouldn't have bothered about Apartheid because we'd our own discriminatory society in Northern Ireland to worry about.

It's odd that the whataboutery comes out on a thread about a feminist activist, well actually it isn't odd, par for the course.

It wasn't honestly meant to be acting like an ass or anything K-9, it was just, well, to use your example of appartheid- what could raising awareness of issue in Ireland, do to effect the situation in South Africa?

It was the "one single incident in a town in Mexico that very few people will ever have heard of" moreso than whether it was a woman, or a feminist or anything else. It's like I said- should we fill AH with articles we just read about that happened on the other side of the world that we can do nothing about?

Here's an interesting take on it that I read a couple of years back-

http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html