Members of hacker collective Anonymous took down two websites related to Pope Benedict XVI's planned trip to Mexico, claiming that the papal visit is a politically-motivated move to boost support for the conservative National Action Party in elections.

Anonymous said in a video that the Pope's visit is timed to coincide with the official start of the presidential campaign season in Mexico, and the money it cost could have been better spent to help the country's poor.

The websites taken down in the attack listed the Pope's schedule of activities in Mexico. A spokesman for the Mexican Episcopal Conference said the attack "does damage to the logistics" of the papal visit.

The official website of Guanajuato, the conservate-leaning Mexican state where the pope's visit is scheduled to start, was also down on Thursday, but that outage hasn't been confirmed as the work of Anonymous.

[wapo]