| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | August 2008 
Mexico Prepares for Mass Protests Against Insecurity
 Agence France-Presse
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| | Pink wooden crosses stand in the place where the corpses of eight murdered women were found in 2001 in Ciudad Juarez, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Mexicans are set to take to the streets of some 70 towns and cities, carrying candles and dressed in white, in mass protests against escalating murders and kidnappings. (AFP/Alfredo Estrella) | | |
Mexico City - Mexicans take to the streets of some 70 towns and cities Saturday, carrying candles and dressed in white, in mass protests against escalating murders and kidnappings.
Violence has risen throughout Mexico since President Felipe Calderon, who took office at the end of 2006, launched a crackdown on drug trafficking that included deploying more than 36,000 soldiers across the country.
Some 2,700 people have died this year in gangland-style killings - more than in all of 2007 - according to national media, and Mexico has overtaken Colombia and Iraq with its kidnapping record.
The recent high-profile kidnapping and assassination of 14-year-old Fernando Marti on his way to school in Mexico City - a crime in which police were involved - unleashed the latest wave of public anger over insecurity and systemic corruption.
"We want to feel safe in the Mexico of the future," said a document calling for the mass marches, organized by more than a dozen citizens and business groups.
The biggest protest will be in the sprawling capital, setting off from the Angel of Independence monument at 2300 GMT and finishing at the main Zocalo square, which has a capacity for 160,000 people.
Protesters across the country are due to sing the national anthem at the end of the marches.
Organizers have called for politicians and officials to avoid the protests due to their poor record on insecurity. Many police are implicated in corruption and kidnapping cases.
Organizers hope the protests, named "Iluminemos Mexico" or "Let's Illuminate Mexico," will bring tens of thousands to the streets, as in the past.
A massive rise in the number of kidnappings in 1997 and a high-profile case in 2004 both inspired tens of thousands to demonstrate, forcing the government to carry out police purges and reforms.
Afterwards, both times, the official kidnapping rate dropped for a while, before rising again.
Official figures suggest 323 kidnappings were carried out in Mexico in the first half of 2008, while one rights group reported 400 kidnappings so far this year, compared with 438 for the whole of last year.
The protests come amid daily reports of murders and massacres, particularly in the northern Chihuahua state where drug cartels are fighting a turf war for control of key drug routes to the United States.
Violence in recent weeks has stretched to areas previously untouched by bloody attacks, including eastern Mexico, where twelve decapitated bodies bearing signs of torture were discovered on Thursday. |
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