| | |  Editorials | Issues | August 2008 
Mexico Gangsters Waive Press Freedom Rights
 Lucy Popescu - UK Tribune
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Lucy Popescu details the violence and intimidation deployed against Mexican journalists who expose corruption.
Barely a week goes by in Mexico without a journalist being harassed, persecuted or even killed for attempting to do their job. The situation has become so bad that the Committee to Protect Journalists now cites Mexico as the most dangerous country in Latin America for media professionals.
In fact, Mexico ranks 10th on the CPJ’s impunity index, along with such war-ravaged countries as Iraq, Somalia and Sierra Leone. According to the press freedom watchdog, 21 journalists have been killed since 2000 – seven of them in direct reprisal for what they have written. Since 2005, seven other journalists have gone missing.
The perpetrators of these crimes against journalists are frequently members of the drug cartels who won’t tolerate any form of investigation. Meanwhile, the helplessness felt by many journalists is compounded by the fact that the murder of their colleagues is carried out with impunity. Often corrupt police or local officials are involved in the cover-up.
One prominent case concerns writer and investigative journalist Lydia Cacho, who runs a refuge for abused women and children. In 2005, she published a book entitled Demons of Eden: the power behind pornography, which exposed a Mexican child pornography ring. A textile businessman, José Kamel Nacif Borge, brought charges of libel against Cacho. He is cited in the book as having ties with another Mexican businessman, Jean Succar Kuri, head of a child pornography and prostitution network, who was already detained. Kamel Nacif did not deny knowing him, but claimed his reputation had suffered as a result of Cacho’s book.
On December 16 2005, Cacho was arrested at gunpoint by Puebla state officials. She endured a 21-hour car journey from her home state of Cancún to Puebla, where she was charged with defamation and calumny. She faced up to four years in jail if she was found guilty.
In February 2006, another investigative journalist revealed the contents of recorded telephone conversation alleged to be between Kamel Nacif and the governor of Puebla, Mario Marín. According to local media reports, the businessman thanked the governor for his part in Cacho’s arrest and offered him “a beautiful bottle of cognac” as a token of his appreciation. He also voiced his desire for the writer to be raped while she was in detention.
Cacho filed a countersuit for corruption and violation of her human rights. After fighting a year-long battle and receiving repeated death threats, the defamation charges were dismissed. However, her acquittal was only the result of her case being transferred to another state where defamation is no longer a criminal offence.
At the end of 2007, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that there had been “no serious violation of the individual rights” when Cacho was arrested on Marín’s orders. However, last April, the special office set up to investigate crimes against journalists in Mexico ordered the arrest of five public employees for the illegal detention of Cacho. The case continues.
In the summer of 2006, Oaxaca City was brought to a standstill for several months by street battles between protestors calling for the resignation of the state governor and armed civilians, later identified by witnesses as working for the local government. American journalist Brad Will was shot dead in the crossfire. Although there have since been allegations of the involvement of government agents in the killing, this has never been thoroughly investigated.
In April 2007, Amado Ramírez, correspondent for the privately-owned national TV station Televisa in the popular holiday town of Acapulco, was shot dead as he left his office. In the same month, another journalist, Saúl Martínez Ortega, went missing. His body was eventually found in the northern state of Chihuahua. Both these murders coincided with a vast federal-level police and military drive against drug-traffickers resulting in the death of nearly 400 people in three weeks.
In June 20007, in Oaxaca, Misael Sánchez Sarmiento, a journalist who had been investigating Will’s death, was shot and wounded by a gunman. In August the same year, Alberto Fernández Portilla, editor of the weekly Semanario del Istmo and a radio journalist, was shot and wounded.
In December 2007, in the western state of Michoacán, local journalist Gerardo Israel García Pimentel was shot dead. Michoacán has become a hotbed of drug-trafficking. The previous year, human heads were sent to media offices as part of a terror campaign.
In the south-eastern state of Tabasco, Rodolfo Rincón Taracena vanished in January 2007 after writing articles for the Tabasco Hoy newspaper about drug smuggling and a string of bank robberies. During a major anti-drugs campaign the following May, Tabasco Hoy received a parcel containing a human head, which was clearly designed to intimidate its reporters into silence.
The Rory Peck Trust, a British-based charity, provides financial support to freelancers in need and the families of those killed or seriously injured or suffering persecution as a result of their work. Its “Good Practice Programme” in Mexico is working to increase communication and awareness of freelancers’ concerns among editors. It also seeks to establish a country-specific hostile environment training scheme and to encourage insurance providers to provide lower-cost insurance to freelancers.
According to its most recent report, Freelancers in Mexico, most independent journalists suggest that more 50 per cent of intimidations and attacks emanate from local government, the police and the military. Worryingly, journalists are more likely to denounce attacks to their employers than rely on the justice system.
President Felipe Calderon met a CPJ delegation in Mexico City on June 9 this year and pledged his commitment to federalise crimes against freedom of expression. He said: “The most important threat to independent journalists in Mexico is the same threat faced by society as a whole – organised crime.”
No one disputes that the violence of the drug cartels is one of the biggest menaces to a free press, but the Mexican government needs to investigate crimes against journalists fully and bring the perpetrators to justice in order to tackle the culture of impunity that perpetuates the cycle of violence.
On June 27, more than 50 editors and publishers of Mexican newspapers called on the government to enact legislation designed to combat the violence against the press, bring crimes against free speech and press freedom under federal jurisdiction and stiffen the penalties for those found guilty of these offences.
The proposed legislation is due to be brought before the national congress next month. It would amend Article 73 of Mexico’s constitution and make a federal offence any crime causing “social alarm”, including threats to freedom of expression. This offers a light at the end of the tunnel for the beleaguered Mexican media. But only time will tell if it is enough to diminish the pervasive state of fear and self-censorship and stop the killing of journalists.
Lucy Popescu writes on Mexico in her forthcoming book, The Good Tourist, to be published by Arcadia Books in September. She is also awards officer for the Rory Peck Trust. For more info on press freedom in Mexico, please visit www.cpj.org |
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