On Monday, the Journalism Center and Public Ethics (Centro de Periodismo y Ética Pública) released its 2009 report, which extensively documents the problems that journalists are facing in Mexico.
The report is revealing because it shows how the freedom of the press has been under attack not just by criminal organizations, but also for some of the state institutions.
Here are some of CEPET’s findings:
– A total of 13 journalists from print and radio were killed in different states in 2009. In seven of these cases, CEPET has evidence linking the assassination to the stories the reporters were working on.
_ As December 2009, journalists around the country reported a total of 140 incidents against the freedom of the press. The states with most of the cases were Oaxaca, Veracruz, Chihuahua, Distrito Federal and Tamaulipas.
– The State security forces –federal, state and municipal police, as well as the Army– have become the main aggressors of journalists. In fact, in one out of three reported attacks against journalists, a security force was involved. Among those incidents were physical aggression, threats and illegal detention as well as the seizure of equipment and recorded material.
– At the municipal level, political authorities tried to control the flow of information mainly through threats and coercion.
– Twelve out of the total number of incidents reported were linked to criminal organizations. Those were the most gruesome attacks and included the killing of two journalists in the northern state of Durango, the attacks against a TV station in Monterrey as well as attacks against newspapers’ offices in Nogales, Torreón, Culiacán, among others.
CEPET’s report shows again that when a country is facing a war, in this case an internal war, the freedom of the press becomes one of the first victims. As CEPET’s conclusion states, the bottom line is that every time a journalist is attacked, the society’s right to be informed is also attacked.
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