Francisco Pacheco was riddled with bullets at his door On the morning of April 25, 2016, in Taxco de Alarcón in the state of Guerrero. He was tasked with investigating the management of municipal coffers for the newspaper El Foro de Taxco, which he founded 17 years ago. Teresa Montaño was allegedly quickly abducted on August 13, 2021. For his status as a journalist. The kidnappers broke into his home and stole files from corruption investigations, some notebooks, a computer, an “old” iPad, tape recorder, camera and car. All “work tools”. After the extradition of Chapo Guzmán, Cynthia Valdez was caught in the middle of conflicts between two factions of the Sinaloa cartel: Chapo’s children and Dámaso López’s children. She was compelled and suffered to dictate to the drug dealers, and she continues to suffer today. threats and harassment. Alejandro Lorenzo Ortiz left Guerrero on the run a little over a week ago after he suffered a gunshot outside his home that killed three people. Since 2015, threats, attacks, robberies and more threats have been chained by those who carried out the “hits”. Now Thanks to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), he is in Spain with his wife and two children.. Valdez, Montaño and Pacheco’s daughter also received support from RSF.
These are just four examples of the disastrous state of the press in Mexico, where 11 journalists have been killed since January 1. “Every 14 hours a journalist or media organization is attacked for doing their jobPaula Saucedo, head of Mexico’s Protection and Defense program under Article 19, an organization that oversees freedom of expression and the right to information, explains to El Periódico: “It seems that a whole system, the press is possible. It basically facilitates the attack of the press.”
Roberto Rock, second vice president of the Press Association of the Americas (IAPA) and managing director of the La Silla Rota portal, coincides with the beginning of this phenomenon in 2000, after 70 years of PRI rule, with a change in government and the strengthening of Mexican drug cartels. Rock remembers that the press is “untrained”.poorly prepared, underpaid journalists, Social Security and weak mids“And soon organized crime groups made these professionals a particular target to “silence them, intimidate other journalists, or simply heat up the square.”
98% impunity
While both Saucedo and the rest of the journalists consulted for this report agree that the most relevant is impunity for these crimes, at more than 98%, there are several reasons for this violent drift (90% for the remaining crimes). ). “The message (from the authorities) is this: have the freedom to killr (…). “If there was justice from the start, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Ortiz says. “Today a journalist is killed in cold blood as if no one was killed,” says Priscilla Pacheco, Francisco Pacheco’s daughter and responsible. to ensure that your case does not get lost in bureaucratic and judicial filth.”No punishment, no minds arrestedscapegoats have been arrested…” adds Cynthia Valdez.
Adding to this immunity is the fact that the main aggressors of journalists are public officials, paradoxically obliged to protect them. “The police are no less educated in human rights and journalism,” Pacheco emphasizes. These attacks occur across the country, but are particularly concentrated in areas controlled by drug traffickers in the states of Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Oaxaca or Veracruz. . drug trafficking and politics formed a team – they call it drug politics – and those who report on issues that affect their interests risk exposure to all kinds of threats, from taking legal action to sexual or physical violence to campaigns of violence. defamation, intimidation, harassment, or eventual death.
This last extreme has been reached 156 times since 2000, with NGOs and international organizations seeing Mexico as the most dangerous and deadly country for journalists outside of a war zone, according to the Article 19 census. And it ranks 143 out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.
López Obrador’s daggers
In this context, then, the words of Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador sound like daggers that devote a section to scolding journalists and media outlets every Wednesday morning – as is known from the daily press conferences he gives. opinion, lie or exaggeration. Saucedo established a kind of truth court (…) The press can of course be discussed, but these discussions should come from the society, not the State. this ‘hunt’ raises ‘the risk of further press exposure’. “It’s a government strategy to strip away legitimacy, to dehumanize the press,” adds Rock.
Teresa Montaño thinks López Obrador is dedicated to bringing attention to corrupt journalists, but her speech “was not helpful and should give a spin to honor the guild“This is perverted and adds to the stigma of the press,” Alejandro Lorenzo Ortiz says forcefully. Along the same lines, Cynthia Valdez argues that the president “contributed much more to these attacks because he allowed them and protected the attackers.”
The consequences of this situation are many. On the one hand, journalists who were attacked and families of those killed cannot receive compensation because cases rarely result in the punishment of the perpetrators. Those under threat can claim the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, launched by the Government a year ago, but many users denounce its inefficiency. “Two of the 11 colleagues killed this year have been protectedOrtiz remembers: He himself confirmed the futility of the panic button because he pressed the button when bullets started coming outside his house, but the police said it would take them 75 minutes to arrive. Something similar happened to Priscilla Pacheco.
re-victimization
Re-victimization is another consequence. Many journalists exposed to this type of aggression often lose the support of media outlets and, in the case of freelancers, have great difficulty reselling their stories. “Nobody wants to approach you, nobody wants to give you a job because you are a journalist under threat.. They don’t want to be responsible for hiring you and anything that happens to you,” says Valdez, a Sinaloa reporter for the daily Milenio, who lost his job due to problems with drug dealers.
This strategy of harassment and destruction against whistleblowers also leads to more and more self-censorship, and some are considering throwing in the towel, as Valdez puts it, “to have a normal life.” “Censorship is the only way out many times between being killed and surviving or maintaining integrity,” adds Saucedo. And this means that citizens are “losing information” through backlash.
Pessimism has taken over the profession. Describing the situation, Pacheco said, “Culturally speaking, Mexico is a very large, very beautiful country, but socially we are a sick society that loves to see blood, normalizes drug trafficking, crime, and there is no justice.” Press “disaster”. Montaño thinks he is in an “emergency situation.” “Desperate,” complains Valdez. In short, Ortiz sums it up: “There are no conditions for journalism in Mexico.”
Source: Informacion
