Mexico: Deadliest year ever for media professionals

This year is already the deadliest year for media workers in Mexico since Reporters Without Borders (RSF) began keeping records following the killing of four more journalists in August.

Given the murders of 14 journalists, at least ten of which have been proven directly related to their work, RSF demands an immediate and radical course change from the Mexican government.

“The number of murders of journalists in Mexico is increasing every week, but neither the Mexican government nor the local authorities are effectively committed to more security,” said RSF Managing Director Christian Mihr.

“The dramatic situation requires fundamental changes: the state programs for risk prevention and protection must be revised and the relevant laws. In addition, comprehensive, long-term political measures are needed to increase the safety of journalists.”

RSF calls on Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to meet with representatives of the organization to decide on immediate, concrete measures that will take Mexico out of the bring out the spiral of violence and impunity.

RSF is also calling on the governors of Michoacán, Veracruz, and Sonora to increase protection for media workers and to finally identify and hold accountable the perpetrators and people behind the murders of journalists in recent years.

MORE DEATHS THAN UKRAINE AND YEMEN COMBINED

For the fourth year in a row, most media workers worldwide have died in Mexico, more than in the war-torn countries of Ukraine (eight dead so far) and Yemen (three dead so far) combined.

President López Obrador has only publicly condemned five of the 14 murders this year. In total, RSF is aware of at least 36 murders of journalists since López Obrador took office in December 2019.

Two other journalists – Jorge Molotzin Centlal and Pablo Felipe Romero Chávez – disappeared in 2021 in the state of Sonora on the border with the United States.

Most murders (five each) since December 2019 have occurred in states where corruption and organized crime are exceptionally high: Michoacán in the southwest, Veracruz in the southeast, and Sonora in the northwest.

In most of these 38 cases, at least some perpetrators and those behind the crime got away with it. The latest case is that of Fredid Román, who was killed on August 23 in Chilpancingo, the capital of the southern state of Guerrero.

He was driving his car from home when two helmeted people on a motorcycle pulled up beside him, opened fire, and then sped away. He was dead on the spot.

Román, 59, was a columnist for the local daily newspaper Vértice and occasionally wrote for other local media.

He had previously been the editor of the newspaper La Realidad, which he had founded but had to discontinue due to lack of funds.

He was very critical of the Guerrero state government and local corruption in all his columns.

Vertíce’s editor told RSF that Román had not received any threats related to his work and was not included in any government protection program.

However, Román’s nephew publicly accused a local criminal group called Los Ardillos, claiming that they had threatened to kill his uncle several times recently.

Roman’s son was murdered in Chilpancingo on July 1. Local authorities are trying to determine if the two murders are linked.

The other three journalists murdered in Mexico in August are Ernesto Méndez (on August 3 in Guanajuato state), Juan Arjón López (on August 9 in Sonora state), and Alán González (on August 11 in Chihuahua state).

Like Román, they had denounced corruption and violence in their respective regions. RSF has not yet been able to identify any direct link between the murders and the journalists’ work but continues to investigate and document the exact circumstances of their murders.

At least nine journalists and one female journalist have been killed so far in 2022 in direct connection with their work. Eight of these ten media workers had stated before their deaths that they had been threatened.

Mexico ranks 127th out of 180 countries for press freedom.

With information from Latina Press