Two peasant ecologists, Don Marcos Paz and Bulmaro Cuiriz, adherents of the Zapatista "Other Campaign" and the local Unión de Comuneros Emiliano Zapata (UCEZ), were arrested March 9 in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, on what the UCEZ says are false charges of property destruction related to their efforts to defend the land rights of the Zirahuen indigenous community. UCEZ says the developers of a tourism project have illegally encroached on forested areas of the Zirahuen community. (La Jornada, March 14; UCEZ, March 9)

On March 14, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) handed a report to the Senate demanding that killings and other rights abuses in the conflicted southern state of Oaxaca over the past months be punished. "There were threats, persecution, physical aggression and acts of intimidation," the report says. "They should be cleared up and those responsible presented to the courts."

Chiapas state authorities have declared a "Huitepec-Alcanfores Natural Protected Area" in exactly the location where a "Zapatista Communitarian Ecological Reserve" had been declared weeks earlier. The Zapatistas say the Huitepec area, just outside the highland city of San Cristobal de Las Casas, is coveted by corporate interests for its resources—both its timber and its watershed, for a local Coca-Cola bottling plant. The local environmental group Maderas del Pueblo (Timber for the People) called the government's move a "provocation." (La Jornada, Frayba, March 14; Narco News, March 13)

The leader of the Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights (OPDDIC), Pedro Chulin Jimenez, and at least 25 of his militants were arrested by state authorities in Chiapas, Mexico, March 8 following reports of attacks on three journalists, including Hermann Bellinghausen of the national daily La Jornada. However, Bellinghausen denied having been attacked or deprived of his freedom. Reports that the journalists were attacked and illegally detained by OPDDIC militants came following a march by the OPDDIC in Ocosingo demanding state recognition of their land claims.

Some 500 Mexican army troops and Federal Preventative Police took over the Public Security Secretariat of southern Tabasco state March 17, and arrested three high-ranking police commanders. The three officials, summarily fired upon their arrests, are part of a clique known as "La Hermandad" (The Brotherhood) that took control of state police operations during the administration of former Gov. Manuel Andrade (2000-2006). La Hermandad is suspected of ordering the hit on the new Public Security Secretariat (SSPT) director, Gen. Francisco Fernández Solís. Fernández was shot and his chauffeur killed in an ambush in the state capital Villahermosa on March 6. Federal authorities also took control of the state armory and confiscated all the weapons to conduct ballistics tests and determine if any were used in the assault on Gen. Fernández.

From the American Civil Liberties Union, March 15:

DENVER - The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a complaint against three White House staffers for illegally ejecting Denver residents from a taxpayer-funded town hall with President Bush, even though they had done nothing to disrupt the event. The residents, who have been dubbed the “Denver 3” by the media, were singled out because of an anti-war bumper sticker on their car.

One of 15 immigrants arrested in March 2002 in connection with a supposed plot to attack the US Embassy in Rome with chemical agents has been awarded $133,000 for wrongful detention. Tunisian-born Abdelmoname Ben Khalifa Mansour, initially charged with being an al-Qaeda agent, is the first person to be compensated for being falsely arrested under an Italian anti-terrorism law passed shortly after 9-11. Mansour, now 37, spent a year and a half behind bars before being exonerated. The evidence centered on a red substance found in a locked cabinet, maps of Rome with the US and British embassies supposedly marked in red, a hole chipped out of a utility tunnel under the US Embassy and hours of wiretaps. The substance, described by newspapers as a cyanide compound, was potassium ferricyanide, a readily available substance used in photography. It turned out the maps had been marked to indicate the site of a restaurant in the embassy district, the hole was too small for an adult to crawl through, and the wiretapped conversations were mostly indecipherable.

Iran's representative to UNESCO, Mohammad-Reza Dehshiri, issued a protest in a letter to the UN cultural organizaiton's director general against the Warner Brothers blockbuster 300, calling it an insult to Iranian culture. Dehshiri called on UNESCO to bring the issue to the General Assembly as a "Violation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage." He has sent similar letters to the heads of the Organization of Islamic Conference, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77. The Iranian Academy of Arts has also prepared a declaration asking UNESCO to take action against distribution of the film. The declaration emphasizes UNESCO's responsibility to protect the world's cultural heritage, saying it should not be silent toward the degrading of cultures through art and cinema. (IranMania, March 18; Payvand, March 16)