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A MEXICAN DRUG cartel has sent a chilling warning to members of the public using social media to criticise its activities – by hanging the mutilated bodies of two young people accused of doing so from a bridge.
The victims, a man and a woman, had been tortured before displayed on the bridge in Nuevo Laredo. Near to them was a sign, which read: “This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the Internet,” CNN reports.
Nobody has yet come forward to claim the bodies of the two victims, who remain unidentified. It will be next to impossible to determine whether they had, in fact, posted material online, the Atlantic Wire reports.
Mexico’s notoriously violent cartels have all but succeeded in forcing the country’s traditional media and politicians into silence; journalists who do report on gang-related crime often become targets of vicious homicides. Some 40 reporters have been confirmed killed since 2004 and many more are still missing, the Washington Post reports.
In this climate of fear, the internet has increasingly been viewed as the last bastion of expression against the horrors committed by cartels.
Popular blog El Blog de Narco and Al Rojo Vivo were both named in the signs. El Blog de Narco covers gang-related crime and Al Rojo Vivo allows readers to post anonymous tips.
Twitter is also being used in the public’s resistance against the cartels.
What a horrible lot don’t blame the USA for trying to keep them out
Michael, drug cartels are so powerful because of US drug use, US war on drugs is a joke, calling Mexicans ‘a horrible lot’ is rather simplistic view
Micheal two young mexicans are dead because of the illegal drugs industry, because they may have used their rights to freedom of speech (a right upheld in the constitutions of many countries) to speak out against drug cartels. Are they part of the horrible lot too?The drugs industry is an international one it doesn’t follow borders, it just follows supply and demand.
Michael, try educating yourself before you make idiotic comments in future.
Dear drug cartels,
You can’t stop the signal!
Sooner you learn that, the better!
I’ve been meeting so many people facing these kinds of threats every day at the Frontline Human Rights Defenders Platform in Dublin Castle this week. 130 incredibly brave people from 85 countries being threatened for standing up for their basic rights. Its shocking to hear stories like this one. Can you imagine actually facing that fear every day but continuing to fight for the right thing despite it? And what if you had kids? Massive respect to the journalists who fight back. Rant over. If you guys interested in reading more about them, visit http://www.frontlinehumanrights.org
Mexico, a failed state now. Imagine the situation in ten years time.
There was a great show on last week where that sas guy chris Ryan teamed up with the special police there ‘bope’. Incredible stuff seeing the conditions in the favelas. The place is overrun with drugs and crime. Remember last year when hundreds of cops raided the place and arrested hundreds?
Scary stuff if they are turning to killing those using social media and reporters
Thats brazil you clown. And BOPE are a bunch of murderers and torturers
My bad mad durdu. I made a mistake.
I ain’t a clown though. I wouldn’t say murderers, they are going in dealing with serious criminals and drug cartels.
This was a mad story. On Monday.
: )
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