The National Security Archive, Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) invite you to a public conversation about the Ayotzinapa case: the enforced disappearance of 43 Mexican college students in 2014, the government cover-up that followed, a new investigation that began to unravel what happened and why, and how this case fits into Mexico’s broader human rights crisis.
On September 26, 2014, students from the Ayotzinapa rural college in Guerrero, Mexico, were attacked by police and a criminal gang. Forty-three of them were taken away in the backs of police trucks and never seen again. The crime shook the country and sparked international outcry. It exposed the extent of complicity between security forces and organized crime in the context of a decades-long U.S.-Mexico “war on drugs” characterized by violence and impunity. More than eight years later, the vast majority of the 43 students remain missing – and are among the estimated 110,000 victims of disappearance in Mexico today.
“After Ayotzinapa” is a three-part podcast produced by the Archive and Reveal and released in 2022 that explores the unresolved case; in December, The New York Times named it among the “best podcasts of 2022.” On January 26, its reporters – the Archive’s Kate Doyle and Reveal’s Anayansi Díaz-Cortes – will be joined by Mexican human rights lawyer Omar Gómez Trejo, who served as lead prosecutor in the Ayotzinapa case from 2019-22 and is featured in the podcast, and WOLA’s Director for Mexico Stephanie Brewer for a discussion of the podcast (with sound clips), the developments in the case, and the ongoing crises of forced disappearance and impunity in Mexico, moderated by WOLA’s Vice President for Programs, Maureen Meyer.
The event will be in-person. English and Spanish interpretation will be provided. Join us!
Date: Thursday, January 26, 2023, 6-8pm
Address: Busboys and Poets
2021 14th Street (at V), NW
Washington, DC 20009
Please RSVP to: http://bit.ly/ayotzinapa-dc