A Mexican citizen jumped on stage as Malala Yousafzai was receiving her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway on Wednesday, protesting the disappearance and presumed killing of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero.
Nobel Peace Prize laureates Malala Yousafzai (back left) and Kailash Satyarthi (right) pose with their medals as a security officers take away Adán Cortés Salas.
Pool / Reuters
A Mexican national who momentarily took the spotlight away from Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai in Norway as she received her Nobel Peace Prize said he would do it again.
On Wednesday, Adán Cortés Salas jumped on stage and unrolled a Mexican flag with red paint splashed on it. Before being pulled away by security, Salas could be heard on video saying, "Please Malala, they are killing us. Don't forget Mexico."
"I only wanted an opportunity to, you know, make the international eyes turn around to Mexico and see what is really going on," Salas later told NRK, the Norwegian government-owned radio and television company. "I would do it again."
Salas attempted to highlight the disappearance of 43 Mexican students who are believed to be dead after allegedly being handed over to drug cartels by local police on the order of a local mayor in September. Authorities have so far identified the charred remains of one student.
Their disappearance sparked a wave of unrest in Mexico and abroad, with people upset with the federal government's response to the presumed killings.
Salas' brother, Austin Nitzar Cortés, posted on Facebook that his sibling had been released after an anonymous "angel" paid the fine he faced after being arrested. He also said Salas was seeking political asylum in Norway.
"My brother is just a youth who raised his voice in protest, demanding an end to the violence," Cortés wrote. "Perhaps the 43 Ayotzinapa students were the drop that overflowed the glass, a glass that for years has been filling with blood."
