MEXICO-VIOLENCE/NUDITY Mexicans strip off to protest justice for missing 43 students

Record ID: 308128

  • Title: MEXICO-VIOLENCE/NUDITY Mexicans strip off to protest justice for missing 43 students
  • Date: 11th February 2015
  • Summary: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (FEBRUARY 10, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF JUAREZ WALKING DOWN BRIDGE WITH LOBATO AND PROJECT COLLABORATOR
  • Embargoed: 26th February 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVACKJXKZ03LRCMRT6YHORA6ZFX5
  • Story Text: WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS NUDITY
    Mexican activists stripped off for Spanish photographer Edgar Olguin to protest the abduction and suspected massacre last year of 43 trainee teachers, who officials have declared dead.
    The students' disappearance on the night of September 26 in the southwestern city of Iguala has triggered massive protests for months in Mexico. Officials say they were abducted by corrupt police officers, who handed them over to a local drug gang.
    Olguin's project titled: "Poner el cuerpo: sacar la voz ("Show one's body, raise one's voice"), is composed of 14 photographs of young men and woman in the nude in public spaces across Mexico City such as public buses and on the metro.
    Co-creator of the project, Francisco Lobato, explained the idea behind the photographs.
    "The project consists of taking nude photos in public spaces with the idea, that the same system we are living in, has dehumanised us. It seeks to humanise the people," Lobato said.
    Slogans on their naked bodies read: "#I'vehadenough," "It was the army," "four months of impunity," "Feminicides, disappearances, narco state, welcome to Mexico."
    Work on the photo series - to show solidarity for the relatives of the missing students - began weeks ago.
    Model and actress Sara Juarez, who participated in the project, said the idea was to bring the cause closer to the people.
    "It was a matter of expressing the emptiness and that silence you feel after the protests because I think that in spite of marching together, we don't know where we are heading to. We have to get closer to people we see on a daily basis, on the metro, on the street, in public spaces," Juarez said.
    Another project collaborator, Minerva Lopez recalled her photographic experience when she stripped in front of commuters on Mexico City's bustling metro.
    "A heavy silence came over the metro wagon and that was a reaction to the nudity. We can see nudity in another context but if we see nudity as a protest, without being in a march, then it generates these type of reactions," Lopez said.
    The photo series was released on a Tumblr page last month. The photos were set to coincide with the four-month anniversary of the suspected massacre.
    The suspected massacre of the students continues to draw protesters across the country and criticism over the government's handling of the tragedy.
    This week, independent Argentine forensic experts voiced serious doubts about a Mexican government probe.
    In a document published on the website of Mexican human rights group Tlachinollan, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), which has been working to identify remains, detailed numerous problems with the government's handling of the case as well as the conclusions it has already drawn.
    The document also faults the attorney general's office for faulty genetic analysis of samples from family members that would be needed to identify the remains.
    Late last month, Attorney General Jesus Murillo said there was no doubt that the students were murdered and their remains incinerated and dumped into a river in the nearby town of Cocula.
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