Artículo 19: Mexico Returns to #1 Position in Danger for Journalists in Latin America

Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Animalpolitico

During the past six year term of  Enrique Peña Nieto, 47 journalists were killed and four are still missing, so Mexico became the most dangerous country to practice journalism in Latin America, reported Article 19 during the presentation on Tuesday of its annual report of attacks on the press.

In addition to the killings, the civil organization defending freedom of expression also documented that during the last government there were 2,502 attacks against journalists and media, up 129% up compared to Felipe Calderón's six-year term , when they documented 1,092 attacks.

Within this rebound of attacks, Article 19 put emphasis on one piece of information: in the previous administration, aggressions against women journalists increased 512%.

In 2018 alone, nine journalists were murdered in different parts of the country, and 544 attacks against the press were recorded, up to 65% more than at the start of the six-year term.

Mexico City, with 383 attacks, occupied the first ranking of attacks on the press from 2013 to 2017 consecutively. In 2018, the entity with the most attacks was Veracruz, with 57; it was followed by Coahuila, with 47; and Puebla, with 45. Other entities more dangerous for the exercise of journalism in Mexico, are Quintana Roo, Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero, which recorded hundreds of reports of attacks in the past six years.

9 out of 10 journalists have  felt threatened or at risk:

The most frequent types of aggressions in the last six years were intimidation and harassment, threats, blocking or removal of information, physical or material attack, and deprivation of freedom of the communicator.

While the main aggressors were public officials. In 2018 alone, 230 attacks were committed by public servants, accounting for 42% of the total attacks, or 4 out of 10.

The organization has counted that since the year 2000, 124 journalists have been murdered in the country.

The failure of protection for journalists:

Another critical point of the Article 19 report is the "failure" of the different governmental mechanisms to protect journalists and human rights defenders.

According to data from the civil organization, since 2012 the Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists of the Government Secretariat has received 747 applications for incorporation, but the Mechanism has not helped to prevent the aggressions.

In fact, just on January 21 of this year, the journalist Rafael Murúa Manríquez, of the community radio station Radiokashana, was assassinated, who was part of the Protection Mechanism since June 2017 for alleged threats by the mayor of the municipality of Mulegé, in Baja. Southern California

On the other hand, Article 19 highlighted the lack of effectiveness of the Special Prosecutor for the Care of Crimes committed against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE).

"The effectiveness of the Special Prosecutor's Office for Attention to Crimes Committed against Freedom of Expression (Feadle) is 0.87%. 99.13% of the attacks reported by journalists before this prosecution remain unpunished, "stressed Ana Ruelas, director of Article 19.

"And to illustrate the failure - Ruelas added -, it is important to point out that, in six years, the FEADLE has obtained only 10 convictions in crime committed against journalists derived from investigations initiated since 2012. A very poor record that consists in achieving little more that a sentence per year in a country in which, in that same time (2012-2018), there were 2,530 attacks against journalists in probable link with their work ".

Of the 10 judgments, Article 19 highlights the fact that, in at least six of them, it can be inferred that in the commission of the crime it is related to a public official.

Official advertising:

In Peña Nieto's administration, 60,237 million pesos were spent on official advertising, and although President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised to reduce advertising spending by 50%, Article 19 stated that a clear and transparent public policy is needed on how Spending and institutional advertising are distributed.

Only in 2018, ten media outlets received 48.3% of the 7,849 million pesos that the federal government spent on advertising. Among these media, the most benefited were Televisa (one thousand 258 million pesos), Estudios Azteca (808 million), El Universal (313 million), Grupo Imagen (297 million) and Grupo Fórmula (240 million).

"The official publicity is the pretext to wait for the Mexican press to offer favorable coverage to the government in turn," said Article 19, referring to a statement by UN rapporteurs.

On this point, Ana Ruelas said that freedom of expression and the right to information are rights "that have not been guaranteed successfully" in a context "riddled with biased, incomplete, dictated and agreed information".

"The Mexican State is obliged to prevent public advertising from being used as a mechanism of indirect censorship, as well as to prevent the amounts assigned to official advertising from being translated into editorial control," he said.

As for the pending government, said Article 19, is to create a comprehensive policy of protection to the press, because since the beginning of the current administration six journalists killed: Santiago Barroso , Reynaldo Lopez, Rafael Murúa and Jesus Ramos Rodriguez .

The organization asked to recognize that the attacks on the dam derive from impunity and demanded an end to it, for which it demanded a "truly autonomous" Public Prosecutor's Office and that the government recognize that access to information and transparency is an achievement of the Mexican civil society. Read the full report above.