Posts

Posted on

Inside Colombia’s “Guantanamo Bay”: A Human Rights Nightmare (teleSUR English & Truthout)

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - Ariz Carrillo spent two years and five months locked behind bars at one of Colombia's maximum security prisons, La Tramacua ­-- a place so renown for its human rights abuses that it has been dubbed "the Guantanamo of Colombia". "For no reason, only because I was a political prisoner. They tortured me …

Continue reading "Inside Colombia’s “Guantanamo Bay”: A Human Rights Nightmare (teleSUR English & Truthout)"

Posted on

‘Plan Colombia’ Has Been a Nightmare for Women (teleSUR English & Truthout)

QUITO, ECUADOR - Six women were raped every hour in Colombia during the first nine years of Plan Colombia. That figure was taken from a joint survey done by women's rights organizations, which include Oxfam and other Colombian based groups. The study also revealed that some 489,678 women were victims of some type of sexual …

Continue reading "‘Plan Colombia’ Has Been a Nightmare for Women (teleSUR English & Truthout)"

Posted on

‘You Can’t be Scared of Death There’ Life as a Colombian Refugee (teleSUR English & Truthout)

QUITO, ECUADOR - Keli did not leave Colombia voluntarily. Neither did Luis. And neither one of them grew up thinking they would one day be labelled a refugee. The two of them fled very different situations of violence in Colombia, what together epitomize the complexities of the ongoing war in the country. Keli – which …

Continue reading "‘You Can’t be Scared of Death There’ Life as a Colombian Refugee (teleSUR English & Truthout)"

Posted on

Zapatista Schools Open Doors in Chiapas (The Media Co-Op)

International solidarity in the classroom SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO—Over the last few years, the Zapatistas in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas have garnered very little media attention and been infamously secretive. But although they’ve shifted away from their militant stance of the 1990s and their national political campaigning of the early 2000s, the movement …

Continue reading "Zapatista Schools Open Doors in Chiapas (The Media Co-Op)"

Posted on

Los Vigilantes de Tepito / Vigilantes in Mexico’s Capital (El Dominical)

(English Version to follow) CIUDAD DE MEXICO - Armados con walkie-talkie y placa de identificación, ellos patrullan uno de los barrios más peligrosos de la ciudad de México. Es un grupo, integrado principalmente por ciudadanos, el que brinda seguridad en un área que la policía no puede o no quiere proteger. Se autodenominan “policía comunitaria”, …

Continue reading "Los Vigilantes de Tepito / Vigilantes in Mexico’s Capital (El Dominical)"

Posted on

Mexico’s escribanos: sending email without the internet (The Toronto Star)

Also known as scribes, they continue to be in demand, writing letters for estranged lovers and complaints to government MEXICO CITY—Typewriters are long thought to be a thing of the past, or an essential piece of vintage decor, but not in Santo Domingo Square in Mexico City. Here, some 20 escribanos sit outside, behind their …

Continue reading "Mexico’s escribanos: sending email without the internet (The Toronto Star)"

Posted on

Photovideo Filadelphia Street – Public Space, Change and Stability (Mercado de Martes)

Fascinated by the varying uses of public space, Visual Anthropologist Paola Frances Garnica and I documented the use of a particular street in Mexico City.  Looking at Filadelfia Street in the area Benito Juarez, we explored how the stability of the street can guide people's actions (for example, where there is a chair I will …

Continue reading "Photovideo Filadelphia Street – Public Space, Change and Stability (Mercado de Martes)"