La Jornada: Emir Olivares Alonso
Translated by Catriona McDermid
Journalists in Mexico today have to work under dangerous circumstances which undermine the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of information. According to experts in the field, daily realities faced by journalists include assaults, murder, disappearances and impunity for those who commit these crimes, media monopolies, judicial harassment and the criminalization of the journalistic profession, a lack of contracts, protection and access to social security [health insurance and pensions] (it is estimated that only 12% of working journalists are contracted) and insufficient regulation of state publicity.
To commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the murder of senator Belisario Domínguez, a seminar entitled Freedom of Expression, Dissidence and Democracy was organized by the Senate, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Luis Raúl González Pérez, general counsel of UNAM and ex-director general of the Grievance Program for Journalists and Civil Rights Defenders organized by the National Center for Human Rights (CNDH), indicated during the seminar that reporters’ rights to free expression are impeded in many different ways, ranging from murders and assaults to judicial harassment and restrictive legislation.
Attacks come from government authorities, but also from other powerful groups such as political parties, trades unions and social and religious organizations, as well as from organized crime. He referred to the report on the right to free expression in Mexico presented by the UN and the IACHR in 2010, which named Mexico as the most dangerous country in Latin America to be a journalist, and the fifth most dangerous in the world.
He also reminded attendees that between April 2000 and July 2013 the CNDH recorded that 85 journalists were murdered, 20 disappeared and there were 40 attacks against the media. The group issued 34 recommendations during the period. The general counsel lamented the fact that there is no unity between media bodies in Mexico as there is in other countries, where in cases of murder or attacks on journalists the media get together to condemn the act and demand justice.
Aleida Calleja, from the Mexican Freedom of Information Association, said that 98% of crimes committed against journalists go unpunished. She added that responsibility for the current situation facing the Mexican press lies with the authorities, criminals and owners and managers of media companies, as well as with the reporters themselves.
Although laws have been passed and there are organizations and attorneys dedicated to these crimes, journalists continue to be murdered, assaulted, disappeared, exiled, imprisoned and harassed.
She condemned the fact that in the existing news reporting system the media put commercial interests before social responsibility, and also that in most cases reporters are not guaranteed job security, labor rights or access to training.
She stressed that responsibility for the matter ultimately lies in the fact that there is no organization or coordination in the profession for the defense of journalists’ rights.
She said that media monopolies deprive critical and independent journalists of a voice and limit the expression of diverse opinions, and that in Mexico journalism is limited to reporting; there is no investment in investigative journalism.
Iván Báez, representing the Article 19 legal program, said that the lack of security resulting from the violent situation in Mexico makes it impossible for the press to do its job adequately. He underlined that aggressions against journalists are continuing under the current administration, and that it is not enough for the state to simply document these crimes: it must provide truth, justice and compensation. Spanish original