A group of protesters made up of the surfing community, beach vendors and other groups demonstrated this Thursday against the blockade of access to El Camarón beach, where after talking with the authorities they decided to knock down the fence that prevented access to the sand and the sea.
Summoned by surfing leaders at the municipal and state level, the protesters claimed that access to the beach cannot be blocked by any private sector businessman. In addition, they called on the new Mayor, Estrella Palacios Domínguez, to solve this problem.
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“The entire Mexican Republic is seeing these publications of what is happening here in Mazatlán and we are not going to allow it. We are Mexicans and all the people who come to visit here deserve to enter the beach. We are here those who live off the beach, those who swim, the surfers, the merchants, everyone has access rights,” explained Lilia Orrante.
“Now it turns out that Mazatlán belongs only to foreign investors. How can it be possible that those of us who live here, those of us who have our house here, can’t go to the beach now? Do we have to stay here or do we have to be investors to be able to enter? We have to ask people to join us.”
Lilia Orrante reiterated that the protesters have the right to demand because their access to Cerritos was closed.
Meanwhile, Feliciano Altamirano, from the Municipal Surfing Committee of Mazatlán; and Adrián Valenzuela, head of the Surfing Association of the State of Sinaloa, spoke about how the blockade of El Camarón beach does not allow direct passage to all the children who attend the surfing school they have next to the Municipal Sports Institute.
The protesters armed themselves with signs and chanted various slogans, such as “Be careful, Mazatlán, they are going to take away our beaches”, “Access to the beach is a right, not a privilege”, “The sea is not privatized, access is not limited”, “Mazatlán loses its beauty with fences” and “No to private beaches”.
Afterwards, they knocked down the fence that was blocking access at around 5:18 p.m.
AUTHORITIES PROMISE TO ACT THROUGH LEGAL MEANS
Representing the Mazatlan authorities were the director of Operadora de Playas, Ángel García; and Julio Osuna, director of Planning, who, despite not having yet received an official appointment, promised, along with his colleague, to act to prevent the blockades to access to beaches from continuing.
“Yesterday I took office as director of Operadora de Playas and here we are already studying and analyzing the issue, we just have to take into account that public officials, unlike citizens, are only authorized to do what the law allows us, no more and no less,” explained Ángel García.
“I want to remind you that on October 21, 2020, there was a radical reform to the General Law of National Assets where it was added in paragraph 8 that under no circumstances should public access to the federal zone and maritime beaches be inhibited, prohibited, restricted or conditioned. Also, article 154 of that reform states that there may be fines for anyone who does this; we are talking about a fine of one million, or more than one million 200 thousand pesos at 300 thousand as a minimum, and that is where we have to act.”
Source: noroeste
