No less than four journalists were murdered in January in Mexico. Roberto Toledo was killed on January 31. He worked for a local media in the center of the country, in Zitacuaro, where he denounced the corruption of municipal authorities. A few days earlier, three journalists were assassinated, two of them in Tijuana, a city in the north.
The phenomenon is not new, however: Mexico is considered the most dangerous country in the world for the practice of journalism. But Mexican journalists are flabbergasted by such violence. Four assassinations in quick succession is brutal, especially since Lourdes Maldonado and Roberto Toledo, two victims in January, had denounced threats against them.
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In Mexico today, journalists feel like they have a target behind their backs. Some opt for exile: this is the case of Jesús Lemus, who left the country after receiving death threats. He accurately describes the terror that has gripped the profession. “Today, journalists are very scared. When we investigate, the first idea that comes to mind is: ‘who will feel attacked by my work?’ And from there, many journalists opt for silence.”
Who is behind these crimes? The most likely suspects are cartels, narcos, organized crime. The reality is more complex: according to independent investigations carried out by press protection organisations, the majority of attacks and murders of journalists are carried out by representatives of municipal or regional authorities. For it is at the lowest level of power that the links of corruption with organized crime are the closest. And, consequently, the involvement of the authorities explains the impunity of the murders of journalists, because these crimes are not investigated.
Unfortunately, the mechanism to protect journalists put in place by the federal government nine years ago has proved ineffective. Several journalists who benefited from police protection, such as Lourdes Maldonado, have nevertheless been murdered. As a consequence of this vulnerability of journalists, many Mexican media have decided not to report cases of corruption in order to protect the lives of their employees. Mexican society seems not to understand the scope of these attacks, according to Jesús Lemus: “Society risks not having access to information because journalists are killed.”
“There is no real collective awareness of what silence entails.”
Jesús Lemus, an exiled Mexican journalistat franceinfo
Jesús Lemus plans to return to Mexico when impunity for crimes has ended and there are real protection measures for threatened journalists.