Three community radio stations in Mexico have been threatened and even closed down between this and last year. According to the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), the radios are legal, have limited broadcasting reach, and not sponsored by commercial Mexico, but only 12 supported by AMARC have licenses from the government. interests. There are more than 130 community radio stations in
The radios have been giving airspace to actions and spokespeople of the APPO (the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca), which has been protesting ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) leaders. Journalists attribute the attacks of the radios to political anger from the PRI and other conservative leaders.
Radio-journalists at a station in Calenda, Oaxaca, have been threatened and arrested. In January, a PRI ex-mayor ousted by the APPO opened fire on a journalist, while later another was stoned and a third was arrested, threatened and forced to sign a document promising not to support subversive activities. In many cases the federal police have refused to protect journalists from attacks. The Calenda case reached the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Thursday though AMARC.
The Nandia Indigenous radio station in a Mazateca community in the state of Oaxaca was shut down at gunpoint by PRI supporters last year and has yet to reopen. A third station, La Voladora, in Amecameca, near the capital, has been threatened for reporting on the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and other social movements.
