Freedom House’s annual Freedom of the Press Index, released Monday at World Press Freedom Day events in Washington, show that press freedoms are on the decline throughout the world as authoritarian regimes tighten their control over new media forms of communication and as worsening violence in countries like Mexico has pushed more journalists into self-censorship. (more…)
Community radio station have grown more popular in Mexico in the last few years creating conflicts with private radio networks. It is expected new laws which will either expand or retract the operating room for these low wattage radio stations will be included in an upcoming revision of television and radio legislation in Mexico. In the last few months, private radio station owners have lobbied the Mexican Congress about the increasing popularity of the community radio stations.
In early April, the Chamber of Deputies organised a forum on the challenges posed by the community radio movement, which was attended by both friends and foes of the community radios. During one of the panels at the event, representatives of Mexico’s Radio and Television Chamber (CIRT), which represents major radio station owners, asked the Mexican government to ensure there was no uneven competition between private radio stations and community radios. Emilio Nassar of the CIRT said that after subsidies, the community radios could be better situated economically than the private for profit stations.
Nassar insisted that “the independence with which the industry works today in Mexico, allows plurality, content diversity and editorial autonomy. Everything can be said on radio”. So why are the community radios necessary, he asked rhetorically.
Back in December 2009, radio station owners used a full page newspaper advertisement to argue that permitting the operation of community radios could produce a Chavez-style government in Mexico. A claim rejected by AMARC-Mexico, an NGO that promotes community radio. Community radio stations have been targeted by politicians in the regions too. In January, the government of Veracruz detained a radio director for operating his Radio Diversidad without a license. A detention that prompted the Human Rights Commission for Mexico City to express concern about the “criminalisation of community radios”. A fear echoed by many working in community radio as politicians debate their future.
The 1962 film Santoy las Mujeres Vampiro (Santo and the Vampire Women) was due to be screened for the first time last week at Mexico’s Guadalajara Film Festiva. Unfortunately, one wrestler’s relatives intervened and got the film pulled from the festival. Morality was cited as the reason for its removal. El Santo was an iconic wrestler known for wearing a silver cloth mask with his leotard and cape. He never showed his face in public. According to his son, who is now also a silver masked wrestler known as El Hijo del Santo (the Son of El Santo), his father never agreed to have the movie shown in Mexico because the vampire women appear topless. He said that it violated all forms of decorum.
The film was a classic “B” movie, which was made in Mexico for foreign audiences. The story is about a professor who recruits a professional wrestler to protect his daughter from vampires who want to kidnap her and marry her off to the devil. The movie was directed by Alfonso Corona Blake , who directed 27 Mexican films in the 1950s and 1960s.
El Santo performed from 1942, when he adopted his stage name, until 1984. He was one of the most famous wrestlers in Latin America. Mexican wrestling, called Lucha Libre, is acrobatic and more dramatic than the sport practised in the United States. Traditionally a lower middle class sport, wrestling has begun to attract more sophisticated fans in recent years. The most famous wrestler today is Mistico, a short nimble wrestler who also wears a mask and can do acrobatic turns like a circus performer. He is now scheduled to begin wrestling in the United States under the World Wrestling Entertainment brand.
Reporter Noel Lopez Olguin has gone missing in Veracruz state. The Head of the Veracruz State Commission for the Defence of Journalists claims that no one has heard from him since 8 May. He travelled to the town of Soteapan in response to a telephone call. His car was found on the road to Soteapan, but his whereabouts remain unknown. Veracruz is often used as a transit point for drug cartels trafficking drugs to the USA. Paramilitary group Los Zetas is very active in the region, and kidnappings occur frequently.