Movement for Peace with Justice: Social Networking Sites Mobilise Mexicans Fed Up with Violence

Social Networking Sites Mobilise Mexicans Fed Up with Violence - IPS ipsnews.net: "Estimates by participants in the protest in the Mexican capital ranged from 5,000 to 20,000 demonstrators. That might sound like a small number in a city of 21 million people. But it was seen as impressive for the first protest to emerge from the social networking sites, against the spiralling violence that has plagued this country over the last few years.

'It is an impressive demonstration, if you consider that there was no organisation, political party or TV station behind it,' Agustín Guerrero, a federal lawmaker of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), told IPS, walking alongside the party's local leader, Manuel Oropeza.

This time, the mainstream media did not play a central role in the demonstrations, and were reluctant guests in a citizen movement, which in just 48 hours took off in Twitter and Facebook, giving rise to protests in 20 cities in Mexico and half a dozen cities in several other countries.

The call for the protest was launched by poet Javier Sicilia, who writes for the weekly newspaper Proceso. His 24-year-old son Juan Francisco was killed Mar. 28 along with three of his friends and three other people."