Five Mexican journalists have been murdered in less than five weeks, and newsmedia industry chiefs want the country’s president to take action over it.
WAN-Ifra and its World Editors Forum have asked president Andrés Manuel López Obrador to act to end a “culture of impunity” which they say undermines efforts to combat the violence.
Mexico is “the most dangerous country in the world in which to be a journalist,” the group says, 30 journalists having been murdered since the current presidency began in December 2018.
Heber López Vázquez (pictured), a director of RCP Noticias online, who was killed on February 10 in Oaxaca state, is the fifth journalist to have been murdered in 2022.
Attacks have continued to escalate, despite the 2012 introduction of the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists.
In addition to López Vázquez, cameraman and editor Roberto Toledo was murdered in Zitácuaro, Michoacán on January 31; local journalist Lourdes Maldonado was murdered outside her home in the border city of Tijuana on January 23; photojournalist Margarito Martínez was killed in an armed attack in Tijuana on January 17; and José Luis Gamboa Arenas was murdered in the port of Veracruzon on January 10.
WAN-Ifra chief executive Vincent Peyrègne said the organisation condemned “this outrageous wave of violence” and called on the president to take firm, decisive action “to end the stain of impunity that is killing our colleagues and decimating the Mexican media landscape.
“It is simply unacceptable for Mexican journalists to be exposed to this level of violence, threat and intimidation and the state must urgently accept its responsibility to protect lives, stand up for media freedom, and prioritise human rights.”
In addition to the tragic loss of life, the ongoing violence has created a deep chilling effect throughout the profession leading journalists and the media outlets they represent to resort to self-censorship as the only effective means of protection.
In the interests of preserving life, such self-imposed silence has profound consequences for democracy. Growing information vacuums are handing narrative control to organised criminals, or corrupt local governments, who regularly undermine the rule of law and neutralise the impact of public interest journalism.
In a letter sent to the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, WAN-Ifra president Fernando de Yarza, WEF president Warren Fernandez, and the heads of WAN-Ifra national member associations across Latin America and Spain urged the Mexican government to send a strong message in support of journalists and in defence of freedom of expression.
“Only through concrete and effective measures that once and for all eradicate the scourge of impunity will this worrying spiral of violence, that has such a detrimental effect on Mexican democracy, end,” they say.
Photo: International Press Institute.