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Alert

Members of activist group threaten journalists

(IPYS/IFEX) - In the early morning of 19 September 2006, various journalists were threatened by members of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (Asamblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca, APPO) when the journalists passed near an APPO barricade around the radio station Grupo Oro, which has been occupied by APPO since 21 August. The incident took place in the state of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico.

The journalists were trying to take photographs of the location and to take notes when various hooded individuals that were guarding the barricade brandished guns, sticks and bottles threateningly at them. The journalists left the scene. Those threatened were: Ixtli Martínez; of radio station W-Radio and E-Consulta; Iván González, Televisa television station journalists Iván Saldaña and Jorge González; and "Reforma" newspaper correspondent Virgilio Sánchez.

The occupation of the radio station is one of various acts of protest against the regional government staged since August by APPO to promote its demands (on the previous protests and related conflict, see IFEX alerts of 28, 24, 23, 22 and 10 August, 25 and 24 July, and 19 June 2006).

IPYS believes that the organization has restricted the rights of freedom of expression and the press as a means to apply political pressure.