Killing of journalists in Mexico

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists and among the ones with the highest levels of unsolved crimes against the press. More than 100 media workers have been killed or disappeared since 2000, and most of these crimes remained unsolved, improperly investigated, and with few perpetrators arrested and convicted.

Examples

Miroslava Breach, was a Mexican journalist, known for her work as a researcher about violations of human rights in Sierra tarahumara, drug trafficking and corruption. She was murdered on March 23, 2017 in the city of Chihuahua.

She used to say that corrupt politicians were more dangerous than drug traffickers. For almost 30 years, she investigated cases in which authorities and criminals appeared to work hand in hand in her native state of Chihuahua, in northern Mexico. Last year, she reported for the national newspaper La Jornada on the alleged links between organised crime and candidates standing in the local elections in several towns in western Chihuahua - some located on lucrative drug-trafficking routes. For her enemies, she had crossed a line.

In March, as Breach left home in the morning to take her 14-year-old son to school, gunmen shot her eight times. They left a note, "Por lengua larga," meaning for your long tongue.

In Ireland a similar incident occurred, Veronica Guerin, an Irish crime reporter was murdered by drug lords. Guerin's murder caused outrage, and Taoiseach John Bruton had called it "an attack on democracy".

On 2 May 1997, at a ceremony in Arlington, her name and those of 38 other international journalists who died in the line of duty in 1996 were added to the Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial. Guerin stood for freedom to write. She stood as light, and wrote of life in Ireland, and told the truth. She was not a judge, nor was she a juror, but she paid the ultimate price with the sacrifice of her life.

Analysis

The criminal justice system is incapable of providing any answers for journalists and their families who are being killed with impunity. The collusion between the government and organized crime, is a fact that it’s blocking the possibility of investigators ever getting to the bottom of these cases.

Citing the violence, the Mexican newspaper Norte in Ciudad Juárez announced last month that it was shutting down.

Seven journalists have been killed in the country so far in 2017, most shot by gunmen in broad daylight. Yet virtually all cases of attacks on the press end up unsolved and, in many, corrupt officials are suspected of partnering with criminals.

In 2010, pressure from campaigners led to the creation of a special office of the federal prosecutor for crimes against freedom of expression, known as the Feadle, which investigates attacks on journalists.

The deaths continued. Then, in 2012 the federal government set up a specific protection mechanism for journalists and human rights defenders under threat.

More than 600 people were protected by the programme, which can relocate professionals and their families, give them police protection and a panic button, which sends a distress signal to officials via cell phone networks. Welcomed at first, many now say that very little has really worked.

As the killings mount, is there anything that Mexico can do to save its journalists?

Assessment

Our assessment is that, journalist themselves have become a victim. "Investigative journalism in many places in Mexico is just impossible, there seems to be no guarantees, no condition, no protection & there is a total collapse of law.