COMMUNITIES IN GEORGIA STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH 43 DISAPPEARED AYOTZINAPA

STUDENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES AS THEY CALL FOR JUSTICE AND POLITICAL ACCOUNTABILITY

For Immediate Release

Date: March 24, 2015

Contact: 770. 457. 5232 info@glahr.org

Communities in Georgia Supports US Speaking Tour of Parents of Missing Ayotzinapa Students, Calls for Community Members to Participate in Events and Raise Awareness in Show of Support Atlanta, GA. Parents, family members, classmates and attorneys of the 43 Ayotzinapa students who disappeared at the hands of police last September in Mexico have set out on the United States speaking tour, called Caravana 43, during which they will visit more than 40 cities, including Atlanta. They will share the stories of the 43 missing students and demand that the Mexican government demonstrate accountability and respond to their appeals to have the students returned. They will also shed light on the human rights abuses related to the drug war currently occurring in Mexico.

Communities in Georgia stands in solidarity with the 43 missing students and their families who are demanding justice and political accountability. Communities in Georgia will show its support for them by participating in the Caravana 43 events held this week in Atlanta. We encourage all community members to participate in the events and to help raise awareness about the missing Ayotzinapa students, their families’ demands to have them returned, and the growing number of human rights violations occurring in Mexico.

For the parents and family members of the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students, Caravana 43 not only provides an international platform to demand justice and the return of their children. The speaking tour offers a forum to criticize the corruption in the Mexican government and its heavy use of violence to silence critics of the country’s systemic problems. Just as important, it provides a forum to discuss how US foreign policy has contributed to the conditions that have allowed for an increase in human rights violations in Mexico. The US-Mexican War on Drugs has resulted in the deaths and disappearances of tens of thousands of activists, students, and citizens in Mexico.

The parents and advocates of the missing Ayotzinapa students will address how the Mexican government has relied on American economic support through the Merida Plan, supposedly intended to combat drugs, to violently repress critics and opponents of the government.