Photo by EneasMx (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Since 2000, 219 journalists have been killed in Mexico, and 23 have gone missing in the past 12 years. The Mexican government has acknowledged the problem of violence against journalists and has instituted several measures to combat it, including the national Mechanism to Protect Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, established in 2012. This mechanism will review requests for protection from journalists, assess each case and provide protection to those determined to be in need. However, the state of reporters’ safety has not improved; 14 reporters were killed in 2015. These actions seriously hinder freedom of the press in Mexico.
Impunity is the most salient problem in addressing violence against journalists. Approximately 90 percent of all cases of murdered journalists in Mexico since 1992 have gone unsolved. In its Impunity Index, the Commission to Protect Journalists ranked Mexico sixth in the world and first in Latin America. In its 2016 Rule of Law Index, the World Justice Project ranked Mexico 88 of 113, indicating a weak rule of law governing the country. Furthermore, the University of the Americas at Puebla’s Global Impunity Index ranked Mexico 58 out of 59 countries with the highest rates of impunity, and found that only 7 percent of crimes in Mexico are reported to authorities. These measurements highlight the challenges the government faces in bringing justice to victims, curbing violence and prosecuting those responsible for the offenses.
A 2016 Freedom House report that analyzed freedom of the press in countries around the globe classified Mexico as “not free,” citing the influence of organized crime and lawlessness in the country as two of the major reasons for the classification. In past years, Mexico has been ranked as “partly free,” but has moved down in classification due to a five-year decline in press freedom. Furthermore, the 2016 World Press Freedom Index ranked Mexico 149 out of 180 in the level of freedom available to journalists, the worst in the Americas.
The violence and the threat of violence have led to a compromised freedom of the press. Publications have been forced to censor themselves and comply with demands from cartels in order to avoid attacks on their reporters. Many cities with high rates of drug violence do not cover crime news anymore, and journalists, especially in the states of Veracruz and Oaxaca, work in fear.
In response to the murder of one of its young photographers in 2010, the leading newspaper in Juarez, El Diario de Juarez, published a front page with a bleeding Mexican flag and the message, “What do you want from us?” Critics deplored what seemed like a submission to censorship by the cartels.
Additionally, the process by which Mexican law enforcement determines jurisdiction for investigating a particular crime is unclear, so many cases go unsolved. As reported by the Wilson Center, there is also evidence that law enforcement will blame homicides on factors other than a journalist’s profession, instead of investigating the relationship between their work and the violence. In failing to properly investigate crimes against journalists, government and law enforcement agencies are sending the message that these crimes are not worth prosecuting and that reporters do not play important roles in Mexican society.
This failure to investigate and prosecute attacks on journalists not only puts lives at risk, but also endangers the freedom of the press, the public’s access to information and democracy in Mexico. Change must be made to properly prevent, investigate and criminalize attacks against journalists, including not only homicide but threats and assault, as well as acts of intimidation against local officials in charge of investigating these crimes. Organizations such as the Wilson Center and the Washington Office on Latin America have stated that some actions going forward should include a public recognition by the government of the important role of a free press and the need to protect journalists, which would legitimize the threat of violence against them and its consequences for Mexican society. The Mechanism to Protect Human Rights Defenders and Journalists should also be better staffed, and work should be done to improve cooperation between the federal, state and municipal governments to better implement the mechanism’s protection measures. If Mexico cannot address the issue of violence against reporters, the state of its democracy is at stake.
We can critique the compromises publications have made to keep their journalists safe, but until the Mexican government is more proactive in preventing violence against journalists and prosecuting those who commit these acts of violence, journalists cannot work unafraid, and the nation cannot expect quality news from its media outlets.
Danya Kachkou is an intern at the Baker Institute Mexico Center and a Rice University senior studying sociology and policy studies.