"POLICE DETAIN SEVEN INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS COVERING WTO PREPARATIONS"

Cancun, Quintana Roo – Seven independent journalists representing various media
organizations were detained today by Mexican police.

Mexican police forces are out in large numbers in the areas surrounding the
Convention Centre were the next round of Word Trade Organization (WTO) meetings are
scheduled to take place September 10 -15.

At approximately 11:50AM this morning, a group of journalists, including cameramen,
videographers, and reporters from the independent media, were detained for nearly
half an hour by Cancun’s municipal police. These journalists were driving around an
area where the federal police (PFP), the municipal police, the state police, and the
president’s security force have established a base to control access to the hotel
zone of Cancun.

Photographer Hector Rodriguez Morales who was one of the seven journalists detained,
said that a municipal police officer on board patrol car 5164, wearing a shirt with
the name ´´Balam´´ printed on it, ordered one of two vehicles driven by the
journalists to stop. This occurred immediately after the group had made a tour of
the area in Cancun where hundreds of police troops are stationed.

The police officer argued that they could not film in the area and that they would
have to wait for the federal police who were going to confiscate their video tapes
and rolls of camera film. Minutes later a white pick-up truck arrived with four
plain-clothes police officers, none of whom wore any visible identification.

The municipal police officer made it clear to the journalists that they were not
under arrest but they should not move. Later another plain clothed police officer
arrived in an olive green pick-up truck with tinted windows and said that it is a
crime to videotape or photograph the police and the vehicles they drive.

A reporter from one independent media organization, AIRE, told the officer that the
vehicles that they had filmed belonged to the private company ´´Futura´´ and that
this is not a crime. The unidentified police officer replied that the problem was
that they had filmed members of the federal police. After a discussion that lasted
nearly 30 minutes, the police officer conceded that the journalists did not violate
any law and asked them to leave.

The journalists involved considered the incident the beginning of a series of
repressive measures. These measures include harassment and intimidation against
independent journalists that have come to cover the entire process around the fifth
meeting of the WTO including protests involving activists from different Mexican and
international social organizations.

They also expressed their concern that these repressive actions will only increase
in severity as the first day of the WTO meetings approaches.

The journalists reiterated that as representatives of the press, they will continue
their work, and that as journalists they have the right to freedom of expression.

They have also contacted human rights organizations to keep them updated as to any
further direct repressive measures.