Maintenance

Journalists murdered in Mexico: "There is a very big problem of impunity"

Photos of murdered journalists are posted outside the attorney general's offices during a protest on February 14, 2022 in Mexico City.

AP - Eduardo Verdugo

Text by: Mehdi Laghrari

5 mins

A journalist was killed in Mexico on Friday March 4.

It is the sixth since the beginning of the year in this country where the security situation is deteriorating more and more.

Interview with Gaspard Estrada, director of the Political Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean (Opalc).

Advertising

Read more

Juan Carlos Muñiz, a journalist for the news portal Testigo Minero, was driving the taxi he was driving to supplement his income when he was shot dead by unknown men, who fled.

The prosecution has announced the opening of an investigation, while

for journalists in Mexico.

In this country, crimes against journalists (about 150 in 20 years) generally go unpunished.

RFI: Why have so many journalists been killed in Mexico since the beginning of the year?

Gaspard Estrada:

Obviously, there is a deterioration in the security situation, especially for journalists.

I am thinking in particular of the regional daily press.

It is she who is most often targeted by the cartels, since she is the closest to the field.

And it is she who sees the extent of the serious security crisis that Mexico is experiencing.

It is therefore to her that the cartels are attacking.

And unfortunately, this is where we deplore the most deaths.

But why are all these journalists being killed precisely at this moment?

Seven journalists were killed over the whole of 2021. Since January, there are already six.

What is this acceleration due to?

I think it is above all the deterioration of the security situation.

I think that there may also be a change of gear with regard to the mechanisms of self-censorship, which may have existed in particular in this regional daily press.

Obviously, these journalists have chosen to defy this self-censorship and they are now paying the price.

And it is tragic.

What are these journalists investigating? 

They are journalists who investigate the situation in their territory.

Journalists who were able to denounce collusion between local political leaders with certain cartels or power struggles within certain cartels, new drug trafficking routes...

Why kill them?

To ensure that we no longer talk about all these cases in the media.

It's used to intimidate.

And unfortunately, Mexico has a lot of trouble with justice, in the sense that more than 90% of court cases are not resolved.

There is a very big problem of impunity in Mexico.

And I fear that, despite the initiatives that have been taken by several governments for ten years already in relation to the protection of journalists and the protection of the press, the number of journalists murdered will not increase during the year 2022. .

►

How is the Mexican government responding to these killings?

What measures does he take?

A system was created about ten years ago, and has been reinforced by the current government, to provide pledges and in particular forms of protection.

Police officers are made available to certain exposed journalists.

A prosecutor's office specializing in these issues has been set up, in order to ensure that the State is more present in the event of threats against journalists, and to be able to respond to them.

Unfortunately, this device is clearly not sufficient.

We have reached a record number of journalist deaths as the month of March has only just begun.

What is this failure due to?

A lack of resources, is there corruption?

It is a set.

Indeed, there is a lack of means.

There is a problem of corruption and there is a problem of impunity, lack of funds.

Justice works badly in Mexico.

Regularly, she is unable to bring those responsible for the crimes to justice.

And there is an organized crime that has managed to establish itself permanently in the territories.

This is what makes it all the more urgent to talk about the structural measures that could be taken to change gears in the fight against drugs.

I am thinking in particular of issues related to the decriminalization of drugs, which is something that is progressing, particularly in the United States, the leading drug-consuming country in the world.

Do you think that by decriminalizing drugs, by stopping the strategy of the war against drugs, we will be able to reduce these crimes?

The question is twofold.

On the one hand, there is the financial question and on the other, that of public health.

Today, cartels thrive on the fact that this is an illegal market.

It is a lucrative market with the possibility of huge financial margins.

And to be able to maintain those margins, anything is possible, including killing, whether it's individuals in Mexico, the United States or elsewhere.

It is therefore necessary to break this economic circuit and this dispute to obtain these considerable benefits.

Hence the question of integrating the drug market into a legal circuit, so that organized crime does not capture the rent from illegality.

As far as public health is concerned, the objective is to ensure that the quality of these products can be guaranteed by the State instead of being made in clandestine laboratories.

And to ensure that these people can be treated in a much better way by the health system.

This is the whole point of the decriminalization of drugs which took place in Portugal in 2001 and which did not result in an explosion in drug consumption as one might fear, but rather in better follow-up of users.

Coming back to the mechanism for the protection of journalists, and the assassinations of journalists, what is the position of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on this subject?

Mr. Obrador has an ambiguous position vis-à-vis the media, since he regularly attacks them during his press conferences.

He wishes to maintain, even strengthen, this mechanism for the protection of journalists.

But in reality, his government did little.

And from this point of view, we can only deplore this lack of action on the part of President Lopez Obrador on this subject.

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

• Mexico

• Crime

• Drug

• Media

• our selection

• Maintenance