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It was during a recent press conference that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto called for a minute of silence to recognize the many journalists—including six this year thus far—who have been murdered in Mexico.
As federal officials stood up from their chairs, the silence was interrupted by reporters covering the address, who shouted, “Justice!” “No more speeches!” “Open the investigation binders!”
And in a gesture that mimicked the government’s reaction to so many unsolved murders, the officials simply remained silent as if nothing unusual was happening.
Killing with impunity
An incredible 98 percent of all murders in Mexico go unsolved. In 2016 alone, 11 reporters were killed, making it the deadliest year for Mexican press so far this century.
Getting an exact tally of murdered journalists is difficult though, as the counts vary between different agencies. One count from the non-government organization (NGO) Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has 95 reporters killed in Mexico since 1994, while an estimate from the New York Times places this number at 104 killed and 25 disappeared since 2000.
Repeated and brutal attacks on the press rank Mexico 147th for press freedom out of 180 countries, according to The World Press Freedom Index.
“To be a journalist in Mexico seems more of a death sentence than a profession,” Tania Reneaum, director of Amnesty International Mexico, wrote in a press release. “The continuous spilling of blood, which the authorities prefer to ignore, generates a deep void that affects the exercise of freedom of expression in the country.”
When Miroslava Breach, a reporter for El Norte de Juarez, was fatally shot outside her home on March 23, 2017, the Ciudad Juarez-based publication made a sudden decision to shut down.
In a front-page letter titled “Adiós,” editor-in-chief Oscar Cantú Murguía addressed his readers:
“Everything in life has a beginning and an end, a price to pay. I am not ready for one more of my collaborators to pay for it and I am not either.”
Violence a product of corruption
The violence plaguing Mexico is usually attributed exclusively to cartels—a common perception fed by television shows, films and corridos that portray drug lords as powerful men, who defy the government.
But, as City University of New York associate professor Oswaldo Zavala said in an interview with Remezcla last year, this explanation mischaracterizes the nature of the relationship between cartels and the Mexican government.
“Mexico is not a matter of drug cartels threatening the Mexican state … but a matter of the state controlling the drug organizations,” said Zavala, who was born in Ciudad Juarez and studies the U.S.-Mexico drug trade. “These drugs don’t just evaporate and suddenly show up in New York. There are larger schemes and traffic routes within the U.S. Nobody wants to talk about how it is that you can get high in New York when there’s mass surveillance done by the NSA and others. We all want to talk about the drug lords in Mexico … without the state, these drug organizations wouldn’t exist.”
Zavala’s statement is corroborated by a report on Mexico’s Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Advocates and Journalists that was released last year by the Washington Office of Latin America (WOLA) and Peace Brigades International.
The WOLA report found that of the 316 requests for protection the Mechanism has accepted since its founding in 2012, 38 percent of the alleged aggressors were public servants (while 31 percent were private, and another 31 percent remained unidentified.)
It also found that protective strategies are not being implemented adequately. In some cases, “the very police corps identified as the aggressor is the authority assigned to protect an advocate or journalist.”
Mexico government’s promise of reform
On May 4, a special delegation from CPJ met with Peña Nieto to discuss its report titled “No Excuses,” and to urge the president to address the epidemic of “crimes committed against freedom of expression.”
Peña Nieto promised to replace Ricardo Nájera, the lead prosecutor for Crimes Committed Against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE for its Spanish acronym), whose office has repeatedly failed to take on cases. (FEADLE has achieved only three convictions since its inception in 2010.)
The CPJ report highlights FEADLE’s failures through the case of Moisés Sánchez, the editor of La Unión newspaper in Veracruz. Sánchez was dragged into a waiting car in front of his family in January 2015. Three weeks later, his body was found decapitated and dismembered.
Family and colleagues believe Sánchez’s death was in retaliation for his coverage of Medellin, Veracruz Mayor Omar Cruz Reyes.
But Nájera dismissed the case, maintaining that Sánchez was a cabdriver and his death was not linked to journalistic activities.
Investigators later obtained testimony from one of the mayor’s bodyguards, who said Reyes did in fact order the assassination. But by the time Nájera’s office took on the case, Reyes had already fled the state.
Nájera was eventually replaced on May 10 by Ricardo Sánchez Perez del Pozo, an attorney with an International Law and Human Rights degree from Northwestern University in Chicago.
The latest tragedy
On May 15, Javier Valdez, a veteran journalist and founder of the Sinaloa newspaper Ríodoce, was murdered. Valdez had been recognized in 2011 by the CPJ for his “bravery and uncompromising journalism in the face of threats.” But the threats caught up with him, and just a block away from the Ríodoce newsroom, he was pulled from his moving vehicle in broad daylight and killed by unidentified gunmen who left his lifeless body in the middle of the street.
Valdez’s murder sent a shockwave of fear through Mexico’s journalism community. Many worried what the murder of a journalist of Valdez’s stature and recognition might mean for the safety of the average local reporter.
On Friday May 19, a small group of people gathered in San Francisco at the 24th Street BART plaza to mourn Valdez and the many other Mexican journalists slain before him.
Chelis Lopez, a well-known radio host and producer at KPOO, who organized the gathering, acknowledged that one would usually hold a minute of silence in honor of those passed. But like the journalists in Mexico who shouted at Peña Nieto, she believes refusing to follow the gesture makes a powerful statement.
“We are not up to keeping silent, we must denounce. Javier taught us not to be gagged journalists.”
Explaining why he continued to report on topics that could endanger his life, Javier Valdez once said “I want to carry on living, I want to carry on breathing. To die would be to stop writing.”
Mexican journalist in danger after denied asylum by U.S.
In February of 2016, Martin Mendez Pineda, a 26 year-old reporter for Novedades Acapulco, witnessed abuses by the Mexican military during a traffic accident and began taking photos.
Federal agents attacked him and took his camera and credentials, telling him to leave the area. He filed a complaint with the National Commission for Human Rights and began receiving threats over the phone immediately after. A few weeks later, several gunmen arrived at his home and told him to keep quiet, so he moved across the country, but the threatening phone calls continued.
After a year of living in fear, Mendez Pineda had enough.
“I decided to do as the law indicates: I walked over the border, presented myself to authorities in El Paso and told them that I feared for my safety at home,” he wrote in a letter to The Washington Post on May 25.
“Customs and Border Protection agents detained me and held me in federal custody for more than 100 days, even though I had submitted all the necessary legal documents and passed a ‘credible fear interview’ in March, showing that I faced real danger at home.”
Within days of his detention, international organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF for its acronym in French) wrote a letter of support for Mendez Pineda’s asylum. RSF conducts investigations to verify claims of threats against journalists, and “verify their testimonies against our own sources.”
“Our organization is convinced that if Mendez Pineda is forced to return to his country, he will be subject to reprisals… We hope your services will allow him to move into and stay permanently safe in the United States,” the letter read.
But even with international support, and following the process required by law, his request was denied twice, on the grounds that he lacked “ties to the community and was thus considered a flight risk.”
Facing the prospect of indefinite detention in conditions he called “like hell,” Mendez Pineda chose to be deported. As of press time, his exact location in Mexico remains confidential for safety reasons.
“My life is in danger again now that I’m back in Mexico,” he wrote. “But my hope for other journalists seeking refuge in the United States will continue to grow.”