Toronto Activists To Hold Procession And Vigil Outside Pan Am Closing Ceremony In Solidarity With 43 Disappeared Mexican Students

July 24, 2015

Participants stand in solidarity with the families of the disappeared Ayotzinapa students in their struggle against State and cartel terrorism, and in opposition to Canada’s support of the Mexican government.

Toronto — Activists will hold a procession and vigil outside the closing ceremony of Toronto’s Pan Am Games on Sunday, July 26th at 4pm. The Toronto residents are outraged by the forced disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa Teacher’s College students perpetrated by Mexican police and cartel members. With their procession and vigil, they will join the massive, pan-American movement of people across Mexico and throughout the hemisphere demanding that the students be returned alive.

On September 26, 2014 students from the Ayotzinapa Teacher’s College (Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College) were raising money to attend a protest in Mexico City when police and gunmen attacked them in the town of Iguala, Mexico. Three were killed, dozens were injured, and 43 student-teachers were forcefully disappeared, never to be seen again. The Mexican authorities’ bungled investigation only proved their desire to sweep away the problem, while families of the 43 disappeared students continue searching for their sons and exposing complicity at all levels of government and law enforcement in the crime. Since the Mexican government began its War on Drugs in 2006, an astounding 24,000 people have been disappeared and 150,000 confirmed dead. In response to the disappearance of the 43 students and the impunity that has defined the War on Drugs, people throughout the Americas proclaim:

“It was the State!” “They took them alive, we want them back alive!”

The organizers of the July 26 vigil and procession ask people to join them outside the Pan Am Games closing ceremony and show that solidarity – and not just sport – stretches across the Americas.

WHEN and WHERE:

Meet at Sunday, July 26 at 4pm in Clarence Square (Spadina Ave and Wellington St)

4:30pm- Procession departs south on Spadina Ave, east on Front St, south on Simcoe St, and west on Bremner Blvd
5pm- Vigil outside Rogers Centre on Bremner Blvd, near Roundhouse Park
6pm- Vigil ends

CONTACT: 
Before day of event: William Payne – 416.536.9511 or wpayne@yorku.ca
Day of event: Stuart Schussler 416.625.2966