RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – To mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and its program Under Risk, dedicated to the analysis of protection programs for journalists in Latin America, highlighted that Brazil, Colombia, Honduras and Mexico are the countries with the highest number of murdered journalists, with 139 between 2011 and 2020, “and where impunity rates are alarming.”
In Mexico, RSF recalled that, following the 2010 United Nations recommendation, the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Attention to Crimes against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE) was created, attached to the then Prosecutor General’s Office, now the Attorney General’s Office.
“Ten years later, according to FEADLE’s own data, the Special Prosecutor’s Office recognized its jurisdiction to handle only 27 of the 92 murders of journalists registered from 2010 through July this year,” ruling out that the remainder “were related to journalistic activity.”
During the period, FEALE only secured 5 convictions for homicides related to violations of freedom of expression, and 25 convictions for other crimes against journalists.
Colombia registers 161 murders of journalists linked to the exercise of freedom of expression, of which “more than 78% are in total impunity, with over half of them imprisoned with no conviction,” according to data from the Foundation for Freedom of the Press (FLIP).
Since 1999, the country has had a sub-unit to investigate the murders of journalists, attached to the Human Rights Unit of the Attorney General’s Office, which still lacks specialized prosecutors.
In Honduras, on the express recommendation of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and due to international pressure for the high rates of violence against journalists and human rights defenders, in 2018 the Special Prosecutor’s Office for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, Social Communicators and Justice Operators (FEPRODDHH) was created, which reports to the National System for Prevention and Protection.
However victims claim that “they do not even have access to information on the processing of their complaints and impunity has established a pattern of self-censorship and profound disbelief in the State on the part of journalists.”
As for Brazil, RSF highlighted that despite being one of the countries with the highest impunity rates, “it has no specialized units for crimes against freedom of expression,” with the majority of attacks being registered “far from large urban centers and involving journalists from small media outlets, many bloggers and radio broadcasters.”
The international organization paid tribute to 4 journalists from the 4 most violent countries for the guild to mark the day: Edgar Esqueda Castro, who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered on October 5, 2017 in San Luis Potosí, Mexico and worked for the newspapers Metrópoli San Luis and Vox Populi, and directed the Infórmate Potosino website; from Colombia, José Abelardo Liz, an indigenous journalist who died after being shot while covering a demonstration on August 13, 2020, as a reporter for the community radio station Nación Nasa.
The organization also recalled Manuel Murillo Varela, audiovisual journalist who was found in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, with three shots to the face, on October 24, 2013, a month before the Central American country’s general elections; as well as journalist Valerio Luiz de Oliveira, a sports broadcaster murdered on July 5, 2012 after being shot six times by a motorcyclist while he was in his vehicle parked outside Radio Jornal 820 AM, in Goiânia, Brazil.
RSF emphasized that crimes against journalists “begin long before a murder is committed,” preceded by threats, intimidation, physical and digital attacks, kidnapping and threats to family members, among others.
It added that in this context, “the systemic lack of investigation and accountability of the perpetrators of these types of crimes opens the way for the escalation and perpetuation of violence.”
RSF concluded that “without structural changes in this respect, November 2 must continue to be a day of struggle so that these lost lives may not be forgotten.”