Mexican President Vicente Fox accused the media on Monday of rehashing the story of a 12-year spate of women's murders on the U.S. border, minimizing a tragedy seen as among the nation's worst crime outrages.
His comments came just weeks after two girls, aged 7 and 10, were sexually assaulted and murdered this month in Ciudad Juarez, an industrial city across from El Paso, Texas, where more than 340 women and girls have been strangled, battered and stabbed to death since 1993, 17 of them this year.
"We must attend to the case of Juarez and we are, but it must also be seen in its proper dimension. These murder cases have been solved," Fox said, accusing the press of overplaying the story.
"We are offended by what has happened in Juarez, but nor is it right to be reheating the same 300 or 400 cases," he told reporters.
Women's groups say most of the murders are still unsolved and there are questions about how convictions were obtained in many of the cases that have been closed.
...The United Nations has called the Ciudad Juarez murders emblematic of rampant rights abuse and flawed justice in Mexico, and a U.N. panel accused Mexico of "grave and systematic violations" in its handling of the cases.
Last week, Amnesty International cited the killings and impunity in Ciudad Juarez as a sign of Fox's "betrayal" of human rights.
Um...is addressing hundreds of unsolved murders and calling out Fox on government inaction really "reheating" cases? Seems to me it's more shaming. And it looks like it's worked, at least a little:
On Monday, Fox's new attorney general called the Ciudad Juarez murders a top priority and announced that special prosecutor Maria Lopez, appointed last year to clean up botched local investigations, was being replaced.
Click here for more posts on the Juarez murders.
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are they serious? vincente...
FUCKER.
"The same 300 or 400 cases". He makes it sound like he's talking about "3 or 4". 300, 400, whatever, it's only women. IT's not like they were important, mostly factory workers, totally replaceable. That's in the past. Let's move on to more important matters.
sputter.sputter.sputter.