Two years on, dead U.S journalist remembered on both sides of the border

Activists and rights groups marched in remembrance of Brad Will yesterday in the state of Oaxaca, marking the second anniversary of the fatal shooting of the U.S videographer.

Will was filming violent street battles in the southern Mexican state two years ago when he was shot dead, and controversy has surrounded the search for those responsible.

In Oaxaca City yesterday, more that two thousand people marched across the state capital to the big central plaza, or Zocalo, in memory of the dead journalist. Their protest was mirrored across the border in the United States, where protesters staged a hunger strike outside Senator Hilary Clinton’s office in New York City, demanding a full investigation into the murder of Will.

The journalist’s family, friends and supporters believe that Will was gunned down from a distance by government-backed thugs and have rejected past official investigations into his death by the Mexican authorities.

But earlier this month two members of the protest movement the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca, known in Spanish as APPO, were arrested in connection with Will’s murder. The official investigation into his death alleges that Will was shot at close range, not from far away, as his supporters claim.

The arrests were condemned by human rights groups including Amnesty International and Mexico’s own human rights commission, which claims that both the state and federal investigations into the death of the journalist included "irregularities".

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— Deborah Bonello in Mexico City