Illegal photocopying and 'propaganda'

Apparently it is illegal to make photocopies or distribute information in the hotel zone of Cancun. Ruth Ramos reports on how the police stopped and searched her bag, and then told her she could not distribute information near the conference.

Today was a photocopying day, that means first thing in the morning: go and make photocopies, last thing at night: go and make photocopies. So, this morning around 7.45 am i was outside the place where the solar truck team sleeps to meet Pepe and Arturo who were going to downtown.

We had a bunch of papers ready to be copied but on the way to our car a policeman approached us wanting to check our bags, so we opened them and he found the papers. (download the document here (PDF, 14K ) if you are outside the hotel zone of Cancun) We started to asked him what was happening andd that we were in a hurry so kindly asked him to let us leave. Maybe he just didn`t listen to us or was still sleeping, but he stared at us and said no, you cannot leave with this, so he called other policemen who quickly moved to where we were standing. One of them had a videocamera and started to film all that was going on (which was a shame, because we all had just woken up and had sleepy faces with a inappropriate hair styles).

We started to talk with the policeman (the first one), who hid the id card hanging from his neck and said we could not leave and had to remain there until he got a different order. I just couldn`t believe it, being stopped at 7.45 am because of carrying a paper which was defined as “propaganda” by a policeman who didn`t want to identify himself and was calling someone on the radio. So i phoned Mr. Pliego, who is one of the important men in charge of the security around this “restricted area” in the hotel zone, explained him what was happening and the answer was that nobody is allowed to distribute this kind of papers around that area and that he would come in a minute. After three minutes he appeared, we talked with him and he knew who we were because we have been having problems at our office as it is in a very restricted area and have contacted him several times.

He asked for a copy of our papers, read it all while the rest of the policemen stared at him and the one with videocamera was filming our faces while waiting for his decision. When he finished reading, he called someone else who would give the final and decisive order, he stared at us as he made the phone call - he explained the whole document to the person. In the end he let us go and made clear that it is not allowed to distribute propaganda (he kept calling it that although several times i told him it was just a document with information) in the hotel zone, only in downtown.

So i guess i just left my rights to express myself in mexico city.
(Here is the document that the police were concerned about: "How does the WTO affect you, and why should you care about it?" (PDF, 14K ) It has been on our website for weeks.

At noon the rolling sunlight arrived at the Oxfam fair trade fair, held in Playa Tortugas (Turtles beach, but the name doesn`t mean that there are actually turtles on the beach). A good day starts with a good coffee, so people from the fair plugged some coffeemakers to the truck and started to make coffee –fair trade and organic of course-, raspados (which are something made of crushed ice with coffee or other flavors) and give info about theWTO –by the way, they were giving the copies of the document that was supposed to be propaganda and the reason why we were stopped by policemen for 25 minutes.

A man approached the truck and tried to take one banner that explained information about the truck off, and finally he did it. So people started to go the bus and see what was happening. Arturo and Pepe, who are driving the truck, tried to talk to this guy but he refused. He was trying to take off all the banners, so a couple of policemen arrived to keep the public order.

Pepe thinks this guy was a policemen dressed as a civilian, because the policemen men treated him as someone they already knew. Nash started to tell other people what was going on, and many people from other NGOs were also there to see what was happening. After a while Pepe got the banner back with the help of a policemen. Things seemed to be fine, until two trucks with red fences arrived, the team thought they would be used to surround the truck and keep people away, but the policemen just
stayed there waiting for orders.

Tomorrow the sun will shine again.

Ruth Ramos, the logistics person for the Greenpeace delegation in Cancun, works for Greenpeace Mexico