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Friday, February 16, 2007

The crackdown

By Jeremy Schwartz | Friday, February 16, 2007, 06:42 PM

The Tepito neighborhood has long had a bad reputation, mostly because it houses the country’s biggest market of bootlegged and stolen goods. Along with pirated DVDs though, the Tepito market is also known as a place to find drugs and guns.

For years, Mexico City has tolerated the situation, mostly, many say, because the street vendors are extremely well-organized and a potent political force come election season.

On Tuesday, the city government stepped into Tepito, kind of. Officials did not target the market, but rather a nearby apartment complex they say is a den of drug and pirated DVD activity. The government is taking the drastic step of expropriating the building and evicting residents. The government plans to turn the complex into a drug rehab or cultural center.

Residents will be indemnified, but only if they can prove they own an apartment. Understandably, the action has created an uproar in Tepito, where residents have taken to the streets in what promises to be a nasty fight.

The Tepito situation only highlights a looming problem: Lacking decent jobs, Mexico has turned a blind eye to perhaps millions of street vendors, many of whom sell pirated goods such as movies and compact discs. The day that the government attempts to confront the situation will surely be a bloody one, if it ever comes.

Permalink | | Categories: Central America

Gay unions catching on in northern Mexico?

By Jeremy Schwartz | Friday, February 16, 2007, 06:39 PM

The new gay civil union law is under attack in Coahuila, even as legislators in neighboring Chihuahua are considering a similar law.

The conservative National Action Party is taking its objection to the Mexican supreme court, arguing that the law approved in Coahuila last month is unconstitutional. At the same time, northern Mexico continues to be the unlikely vanguard of gay rights in the Americas, as legislators from the Revolutionary Democratic Party in Chihuahua introduced a gay union bill this week.

Meanwhile, Karla Lopez and Karina Almaguer say they have been overwhelmed by the reaction since they became the first gay couple to sign a civil union in Coahuila on Jan. 31. The Matamoros couple apparently had no idea they were the first civil union in the country and are beyond bothered by all the press attention.

“They won’t leave us in peace; they won’t let us eat or sleep,” an annoyed Lopez told the Mexico City daily El Universal.

Permalink | | Categories: Central America