Press Freedom

Letter to Mexico March 26, 2012

H.E. Felix Calderon
President
Residencia Official de los Pinas
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec
11850 Mexico, DF
Government of Mexico
Fax: (011.52.55.5) 515.5729

Your Excellency:

We extend our congratulations to the Mexican Senate on the passage of a proposed constitutional amendment to protect journalists in your country by making it a federal crime to attack or intimidate them.  This is a landmark improvement in Mexico, and may encourage other nations to take similar measures.

We urge you to back this law as strongly as possible to speed its endorsement in the majority of Mexican states, as required for it to take effect.  While this amendment is obviously not a panacea that will end the sacrifices Mexican journalists have been making, it should help end the impunity their attackers have enjoyed in recent years, and it might even help reduce the violence from drug cartels in your country.

We also urge you to continue to work to create a wider appreciation of the need for honest journalism in Mexico.  As it becomes safer to be a journalist in your country, we hope you can help develop a culture of honesty and clean dealing at all levels of your government, police and military.

We at the Overseas Press Club of America have been working to protect global press freedom for more than 70 years, and we could not be more pleased at this effort to ensure a safer environment for journalists in Mexico.   Good news for press freedom is as welcome as it is infrequent these days, and we look forward to more of it as your states ratify the amendment.

Respectfully yours,
Rixey Browning
Larry Martz
Freedom of the Press Committee

cc:

H.E. Arturo Sarukhan Casamitjana
Ambassador of Mexico to the U.S.A
Embassy of Mexico
1911 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC  20006
Fax: (202) 728.1698

Ambassador Claude Heller
Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of Mexico
to the United Nations
2 United Nations Plaza
New York, NY  10017
Fax: (212) 688.8862

H.E. Earl Anthony Wayne
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico
Embassy of the United States of America
P.O. Box 9000
Brownsville, TX  78520
Fax: (011.52.55) 5080.2005

Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza
Attorney General
Avenida Paseo de la Reforma,
Nos. 211-213
Mexico, D.F. ( C.P. 06500)
Government of Mexico

Olga María del Carmen Sánchez
Ministra
Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación
PinoSúarez, No.2
Colonia Centro
México, DF
Government of México
Fax: (011.525.55) 522.0152

Genaro David Góngora Pimentel
MinistroPresidente
Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación
PinoSúarez, No.2
Colonia Centro
México, D.F.
Government of México
Fax: (011.525.55) 522.0152

Lcda. Rosario Robles
Presidenta
Partido de la RevoluciónDemocrática
Huatusco # 37, 5o.piso
Col. Roma Sur
México, D.F.
Government of Mexico
Fax: (011.52.55) 5207.1200

Editor
Notiver
Fax: (011.52.7.83) 931.1346

Patricia Mercado Sanchez,
Editor
El Economista
Mexico, D.F.
Mexico
pmercado@economista.com.mx

Juan Francisco Ealy Ortiz
El Universal of Mexico City
Bucareli N° 8, Col. Centro
Delegación Cuauhtémoc, C.P. 06040
México

Ramón Darío Cantú Deándar
El Maòana
Mexico
Fax: (011.52.5) 714.8797

Alfredo Corchado
The Dallas Morning News
acorchado@dallasnews.com

Jorge Luis Sierra
jlsierrag@yahoo.com

Robert Rivard, Editor
San Antonio Express-News
P.O. Box 2171
San Antonio, TX  78297

Maria Otero
Under Secretary of State for Democracy
and Global Affairs
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC  20520