Did the Mexican Senate Edit Official Video of Meeting with Ayotzinapa Parents?

Dec 11, 2014
5:17 PM

This week the parents of the disappeared Ayotzinapa students met with Mexican senators to express their demands for actions regarding their children’s case. Among these were:

  1. For the remaining 42 students to be presented alive.
  2. For the State to give an exemplary punishment to those involved in the crime.
  3. For the living victims of the event to receive proper medical care.
  4. For the government of the state of Guerrero to improve its investigation of the crime.
  5. For the governmental powers of the state, infiltrated by organized crime, to be dissolved.
  6. For local elections to be suspended.
  7. For the United Nations Committee on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to be given powers to investigate the case.
  8. For new investigation lines that look beyond the supposed burning of the bodies to be open.

According to reports, after expressing their grievances, the parents left the Senate, without having an actual dialogue with the senators.

Hours after the meeting, the Mexican Senate posted a video of the meeting to its YouTube account.

In that lengthy video, one can hear the parents’ pleas and accusations of the Mexican state. Beginning in 39:43  Miguel Barbosa, president of the Mexican Senate, appears speaking to the parents, calling for justice and expressing the Senate’s commitment to its search. However, as the camera pans out in 41:00 it is clear that we are seeing a different meeting. The images of the disappeared students aren’t surrounding the tables, as they were when the parents spoke, and it appears that the parents aren’t present in the room.

Why would the Mexican Senate feel compelled to edit this video? Why not continue with the raw footage? And why, we wonder, if they were going to edit it, didn’t they just cut at 41:00, giving perhaps the impression that Barbosa spoke at the same meeting?

Why edit the video?