Armando Rodrìguez, a veteran reporter working for El Diario, was assassinated for his investigations.  His killing takes the number of journalists murdered in Mexico since 2000 to 21.  Nothing seems able to calm the chaos wreaking havoc on the US Mexico border.  Mexico is becoming one of the most dangerous places in the world to work as a journalist.  Ciudad Juarez has seen 1600 murders this year.  As the drug violence continues to escalate, investigators are beginning to make some sobering observations.

“They are getting very good at their jobs,” said Hector Hawley Morelos, coordinator of the state forensics and crime laboratory here, where criminologists and coroners have been overwhelmed by more than 1,600 homicides in Juarez this year. “The assassins show a high level of sophistication. They have had training — somewhere. They appear to have knowledge of police investigative procedures. For instance, they don’t leave fingerprints. That is very disturbing.” link

Border Stories has won the public prize at the Internews Every Human Has a Right Media Awards.  This is an incredible honor and opportunity for our little organization, and we are thrilled beyond belief.  This last week marks one year since the idea for this website was first conceived, and what a way to celebrate that anniversary.  It has been one of the most amazing and memorable years of our lives.

One of the best parts of the awards ceremony was being able to deliver an acceptance speech in front of President Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Richard Branson, Peter Gabriel, Mariane Pearl, and Mary Robinson.  It’s not every day that a former president gives you a thumbs up.

We are intensely grateful to our devoted network that went and voted for us, you put us over the top.  Your mouse clicks have opened an enormous door for Border Stories, and we have relied on your involvement and support at every step of this ongoing journey.

With this acknowledgement we will be able to propel what we’ve already done toward an even larger audience, and to develop new material and projects.  Thank you all so much.

We’ve just wrapped up a visit to Turkey where we attended a conference sponsored by Koç (pronounced “coach”) University.  It went under the title “Irregular Migration at Two Borders: The Turkish-EU and Mexican-USA Cases”.  If that seems like an ambitiously broad scope for a one and a half day conference, that’s because it is.  The goal of the university is to eventually compile the research of the conference’s participants as well as the round table discussion into some sort of publication, so we’ll keep you updated.

But for now, we wanted to highlight a report Human Rights Watch presented at the conference which brought the differences between the U.S.-Mexico and E.U.-Turkey borders into focus.

A person seeking asylum is a rare thing on the U.S.-Mexico border.   In the 1980s, refugees from Central American conflict were common, and in the past few months the flow of refugees fleeing drug violence has increased.  But the number of Iraqis, Afghans and others flowing into  Turkey and to the limits of the E.U. is in the thousands.  The Human Rights Watch report notes that instances of migrants apprehended in Greece seeking asylum have risen substantially over the past few years: 5 times more 2007 than in 2003.  During that time, the majority of these potential refugees came from Iraq.

The report focuses on the treatment of those apprehended in both Greece and Turkey.  Through numerous interviews, it uncovers a pattern of systematic abuses in both countries.  The report’s author, Bill Frelick, said he saw Greek police loading up boats with migrants and shoving the oar-less craft across the Evros river onto Turkish shores.  It is likely that some in those boats had legitimate claims to political asylum in the EU.   The human rights guarantee of asylum is that a person not be sent back to a country where they will face persecution, degrading treatment, or worse.  The report notes that in Greece a whopping %0.04 of asylum claims are approved.  Sadly, Greece is handling a large amount of EU asylum seekers.

Geographically, Turkey is the perfect funnel for migrant traffic from the middle east to the EU via land or sea, and the European asylum system forces refugees to apply for asylum in the first place they arrive. So, between the difficulties of making their way into Europe and those associated with actually being approved for asylum in Greece, refugees are stuck as the Spanish expression goes entre la espada y la pared, between the sword and the wall.