Mexico celebrates Press Freedom Day amid impunity and violence

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – This Monday, May3, Mexico is celebrating World Press Freedom Day amidst spiraling violence against journalists and ongoing impunity, while civil organizations criticize President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s excessive attacks on the media.

This year’s celebration takes place during the coronavirus pandemic, which has also affected journalists, and in the midst of an electoral process that has led to acts of violence against politicians and great stress on the media.

“In Mexico there is a trend toward an annual increase in attacks against journalists that will continue as long as the authorities do not do something to stop it,” Paula Saucedo, protection and defense program officer of Artículo 19 organization, told Efe.

Saucedo considered that among the adversities suffered by journalists is the lack of investigations into crimes against reporters, lack of support networks and the failure of business owners to ensure their safety.

“These issues make it easier for journalists to be targeted and as nothing is done to prevent it every year, violence will continue to increase,” she said.

According to the NGO Artículo 19, in 2020 there were 692 attacks and 49.5% of them were committed by public officials. Such attacks increased by 13.62% compared to 2019 when 609 were documented.

Moreover, in just over 2 years of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration, 17 journalists have been murdered for reasons possibly linked to their work and according to the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) murders against journalists have an impunity rate of 99%.

PANDEMIC AND ELECTIONS

In addition to the violence scenario, attacks were also recorded during the pandemic. In 2020, Artículo 19 documented 113 attacks against journalists who were covering information linked to the health contingency, while last year almost 100 journalists were killed by Covid-19.

The other “quite risky context for journalists are elections,” said Saucedo, given that during electoral processes corruption issues linked to political parties or candidates are published and “this generates a violent and retaliatory reaction against the press.”

She recalled that in the 2018 electoral process, 185 attacks against journalists were recorded, of which 62 occurred on election day, while in the current process, which will culminate on June 6th, 13 attacks have been documented “and we know, with all certainty, that the number will grow.”

THE PRESIDENT’S STANCE

The president’s stance toward the press has been highly criticized for his ongoing attacks against media outlets that, according to him, advocate conservative thinking.

This same Monday, López Obrador also attacked foreign press correspondents, because he said that in the past, they were “spoiled” by the Presidency and now, having lost privileges, they attack his Government.

For Artículo 19 the scenario of violence and attacks against the press has been increasing because the authorities “have not complied with their obligations to guarantee security so that journalists may do their job without fear of reprisals, without violence and without censorship,” Saucedo said.

In fact, with respect to Artículo 19, President López Obrador criticized the organization on March 31st, following a report on human rights by the U.S. State Department in which, quoting information from that NGO, it accused Sanjuana Martínez, director of the state-owned agency Notimex, of censoring journalists.

“The president stigmatizes and attacks the messenger to distort the message, that is his goal when a journalist asks a question he does not like,” said Saucedo.

For journalist Gildo Garza, who fled in 2017 from his native Tamaulipas threatened by the Zetas cartel and heads the Association of Displaced Journalists in Mexico, López Obrador’s discourse “is one of hate and polarization which he has conducted since the day he took office and began his morning conferences.”

Garza said that now “other deputies, mayors, governors, councilors and even citizens themselves are repeating the same discourse of disqualification and polarization against the press.”

According to the journalist and activist, López Obrador “has a war waged against Mexico’s organized civil society because it is the only opposition that remains to be eliminated in his government and that is why he discredits us.”

For Garza, with his stance, the president “gives carte blanche to political players in Mexico to attack, murder and do whatever they wish with the press, with organized civil society and with human rights advocates.”

The association Garza represents registered the displacement of 14 journalists from different states of the country from 2020 to date due to threats and who, upon leaving their place of residence, are forced to flee along with their families, which totals some 60 people banished from their homes.

World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, in compliance with a recommendation passed at the 26th UNESCO General Conference in 1991.

Source: efe