MEXICO CITY: The annual march to commemorate the 1968 massacre of protesting students in Mexico’s capital was eclipsed Thursday by demands to end a humanitarian crisis halfway around the world in Gaza.
The Oct. 2 march that has regularly been used not only to remember that earlier massacre, but also Mexico’s tens of thousands of other missing and abuses of authority, was this year full of Palestinian flags and signs demanding an end to Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
“We feel empathy not only for ours, for those our grandparents died for, but for all men and women around the world who are suffering what at one time we suffered,” said Edgar López, a 23-year-old economics student, who marched with a Palestinian flag on his back.
Protesters marched from the Tlatelolco plaza where in 1968 Mexican troops attacked students demanding an end to Mexico’s militarization and greater freedoms, leaving a never established death toll believed to be in the hundreds, to the capital’s central plaza.
While much of the march was peaceful some groups vandalized storefronts and threw objects, including Molotov cocktails, at the hundreds of police guarding the National Palace.
Mexico City officials estimated the march drew 10,000 people and authorities said there were about 350 who were masked and acting aggressively.
AP journalists saw at least three other journalists attacked by police and protesters, and a police officer cornered and attacked by protesters.
Local press reported at least six injured police, but authorities did not immediately confirm that number.
A smaller spontaneous protest had broken out in the capital the previous night after Israel detained members of a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid. Among those detained were six Mexicans.
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said earlier Thursday that her administration had demanded their immediate repatriation.
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
Gaza crisis features in march remembering 1968 Mexican massacre
Short Url
https://arab.news/8scx9
Gaza crisis features in march remembering 1968 Mexican massacre
- The annual march in Mexico City to commemorate the 1968 student massacre has been overshadowed by demands to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza
Indian writer Arundhati Roy pulls out of Berlin Film Festival over Gaza row
- Writer pulls out after jury president Wim Wenders said cinema should 'stay out of politics' when asked about Gaza
- Booker Prize winner describes Israel’s actions in Gaza as 'a genocide of the Palestinian people'
BERLIN: Award-winning Indian writer Arundhati Roy said Friday she was withdrawing from the Berlin Film Festival over jury president Wim Wenders’s comments that cinema should “stay out of politics” when he was asked about Gaza.
Roy said in a statement sent to AFP that she was “shocked and disgusted” by Wenders’s response to a question about the Palestinian territory at a press conference on Thursday.
Roy, whose novel “The God of Small Things” won the 1997 Booker Prize, had been announced as a festival guest to present a restored version of the 1989 film “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones,” in which she starred and wrote the screenplay.
However, she said that the “unconscionable” statements by Wenders and other jury members had led her to reconsider, “with deep regret.”
When asked about Germany’s support for Israel at a press conference on Thursday, Wenders said: “We cannot really enter the field of politics,” describing filmmakers as “the counterweight to politics.”
Fellow jury member Ewa Puszczynska said it was a “little bit unfair” to expect the jury to take a direct stance on the issue.
Roy said in her statement that “to hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping.”
She described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.”
“If the greatest film makers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them,” she said.
Roy is one of India’s most famous living authors and is a trenchant critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, as well as a firm supporter of the Palestinian cause.
Shying away from politics
The Berlinale traditionally has a reputation for topical, progressive programming, but so far this year’s edition has seen several stars shy away from taking a stance on the big political issues of the day.
US actor Neil Patrick Harris, who stars in the film “Sunny Dancer” being shown in the festival’s Generation section, was asked on Friday if he considered his art to be political and if it could help “fight the rise of fascism.”
He replied that he was “interested in doing things that are apolitical” and which could help people find connection in our “strangely algorithmic and divided world.”
This year’s Honorary Golden Bear recipient, Malaysian actor Michelle Yeoh, also demurred when asked to comment on US politics in a press conference on Friday, saying she “cannot presume to say I understand” the situation there.
This isn’t the first edition of the festival to run into controversy over the Gaza war.
In 2024 the festival’s documentary award went to “No Other Land,” a portrayal of the dispossession of Palestinian communities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
German government officials criticized “one-sided” remarks about Gaza by the directors of that film and others at that year’s awards ceremony.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliation has left at least 71,000 people dead in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, whose figures the UN considers reliable.
Roy said in a statement sent to AFP that she was “shocked and disgusted” by Wenders’s response to a question about the Palestinian territory at a press conference on Thursday.
Roy, whose novel “The God of Small Things” won the 1997 Booker Prize, had been announced as a festival guest to present a restored version of the 1989 film “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones,” in which she starred and wrote the screenplay.
However, she said that the “unconscionable” statements by Wenders and other jury members had led her to reconsider, “with deep regret.”
When asked about Germany’s support for Israel at a press conference on Thursday, Wenders said: “We cannot really enter the field of politics,” describing filmmakers as “the counterweight to politics.”
Fellow jury member Ewa Puszczynska said it was a “little bit unfair” to expect the jury to take a direct stance on the issue.
Roy said in her statement that “to hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping.”
She described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.”
“If the greatest film makers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them,” she said.
Roy is one of India’s most famous living authors and is a trenchant critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, as well as a firm supporter of the Palestinian cause.
Shying away from politics
The Berlinale traditionally has a reputation for topical, progressive programming, but so far this year’s edition has seen several stars shy away from taking a stance on the big political issues of the day.
US actor Neil Patrick Harris, who stars in the film “Sunny Dancer” being shown in the festival’s Generation section, was asked on Friday if he considered his art to be political and if it could help “fight the rise of fascism.”
He replied that he was “interested in doing things that are apolitical” and which could help people find connection in our “strangely algorithmic and divided world.”
This year’s Honorary Golden Bear recipient, Malaysian actor Michelle Yeoh, also demurred when asked to comment on US politics in a press conference on Friday, saying she “cannot presume to say I understand” the situation there.
This isn’t the first edition of the festival to run into controversy over the Gaza war.
In 2024 the festival’s documentary award went to “No Other Land,” a portrayal of the dispossession of Palestinian communities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
German government officials criticized “one-sided” remarks about Gaza by the directors of that film and others at that year’s awards ceremony.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliation has left at least 71,000 people dead in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, whose figures the UN considers reliable.
Latest updates
Recommended
© 2026 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.