UPDATE, 10-30-06: "Federal police backed by armored vehicles and water cannons tore down barricades and stormed embattled Oaxaca on Sunday, seizing control of the city center from protesters who had held it for five months. A 15-year-old boy manning one barricade was killed by a tear gas canister…Some demonstrators used syringes to pierce their arms and legs, then paint signs in their own blood decrying the police." Link (thanks Richie).
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BoingBoing reader Jenny Smith says,
My dear friend Brad Will was killed in Oaxaca yesterday. Brad was a journalist, and he was an activist. He was always, always giving everything he had to work for justice and make the world a better place. We are all so much poorer now that he is gone. I can only hope that his death can serve to bring some attention to what is happening in Oaxaca. I am sure that Brad would have wanted that.
Here is the last post Will filed from Oaxaca, at indymedia: "death in oaxaca: another murder in the months long struggle in oaxaca." More posts there related to his death: Link.
Snip from Houston Chronicle account of Will's death:
An American photojournalist and another man were killed and at least five other people were injured Friday as protesters and pro-government gunmen clashed in the southern state capital of Oaxaca.
The journalist, whom colleagues identified as documentary filmmaker and photographer Brad Will, was shot in a confrontation in a community on the edge of Oaxaca City, capital of the state of the same name. The city center has been besieged for nearly five months as activists press for the removal of the state's governor.
(photo: NYC Indymedia).
UPDATE: The Village Voice has a detailed item on Will's death, which includes photographs of the plainclothes gunmen who shot him (via the Mexican news daily El Universal): Link to Voice item. (WARNING: url includes graphic image of Will with exposed gunshot wound, before his death)
Eliot adds,
Brad Will was a videographer for Indymedia. He was a well-known and respected figure in the New York activist community and the US global justice movement. He had travelled and reported extensively throughout the Americas.
There is ongoing coverage as more information emerges from NYC Indymedia, global Indymedia. The most comprehensive source in Spanish is from the Centro de Medias Libres.
Brad's friends in New York are calling for emergency actions this weekend to demand that the US State Department press the Mexican government investigate Brad's murder and expressing solidarity for the social movement that Brad gave his life to document. In New York, a protest has been called for today, Saturday, October 28, at 3 p.m., outside the Mexican consulate general in New York at 27 East 39th Street.
Please come out if you can, and if you're in other cities please check your local Indymedia for information on local actions, or organize your own. The situation in Oaxaca is extremely urgent and while this awful tragedy hits very close to home for us, it is only one part of the ongoing repression against a vibrant and powerful grassroots movement for justice in Mexico.
Link to a Flickr photo search for "teacher" + "Oaxaca," which yields many photos documenting the ongoing teachers' strike. Image shown here: Teachers protesting, shot by "machoroboraza." (thanks, Michael, Margaret, Genie Ogden, and others)
Reader comment: TourPro says,
I've been following the story for a few months now on my blog: Link.
A friend of Brad says,
This is Brad Will's final footage from Oaxaca, Mexico: Link. It has been released under a Creative Commons liscense. Just over 16 minutes long it shows several interviews and ends with Brad's death. Also available as a torrent, here: Link.
