H.E. Felipe Calderon
President
Residencia Official de los Pinos
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec
11850 Mexico, DF
Mexico
Fax: (011.52.5) 515.5729
Your Excellency:
The world knows that the threat of assassination by criminal gangs is the principal danger facing Mexican journalists today. Mexican police and other officials also run a considerable danger of attack from these same gangs. However, we draw your attention now to the fact that journalists are often threatened by the very people who should be protecting them — the police, the judiciary and local officials.
In the last two weeks, we have received reports of multiple instances in which journalists have suffered threats or attacks by officials:
Santos Vera Gil of El Horizonte was beaten and detained on September 7, apparently in retaliation for a critical article he had written about abuses committed by the police in Agua Dulce, Veracruz. Three policemen attacked him, threw him to the ground, and handcuffed him. He was released sixteen hours after paying a fine for “contempt of authorities.”
Silvestre Juarez Arce of El Diario de Chihuahua, when attempting to take a photo of a woman demonstrating on September 2 in front of a police office, was approached by a police officer with a drawn gun and told not to take pictures. His camera was seized and returned later with the pictures erased. Raúl Lechuga, the newspaper’s news editor, said this kind of thing happens regularly to his staff.
Alonso Alvidres López of El Peso in Chihuahua, said that when he went to the scene of a reported night-time shooting on September 3, a municipal police officer swore at him, drew his gun and pointed it at him.
Guadalupe Inocente Isidro, who reports for a blog in San Felipe Usila, Oaxaca, was threatened with death when she covered a march on April 28 in which the mayor, Joel Isidro Inocente, took part. On August 2, the mayor issued a statement saying “I am going to remove and erase once and for all these little stones (which people are putting in our path), especially the big ones, like the media.” According to the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, half of some forty three attacks on freedom of expression in Oaxaca reported since 2008 have been committed by government officials.
Artemio Hurtado Ruiz, a reporter for Diario del Istmo says he received a death threat on September 4 from Raúl de Lucio Rincón, police chief of Nanchital, Veracruz, presumably because his newspaper had printed reports on alleged abuses by the police.
We should also note that Carlos Ortega Melo Samper of Tiempo de Durango was shot to death on May 3 in front of his house in Santa Maria del Oro, Durango. He had had serious arguments with local officials over articles he had written criticizing the municipal government. As it happened, that same date was the annual World Press Freedom Day, marked around the world to celebrate the necessity of a free press to modern democracies and to commemorate those who have died in pursuit of that ideal.
It is clear that many local officials in Mexico share the same sense of impunity that the drug gangs feel when they attack journalists. We can only wonder at the courage of Mexican journalists who continue to try to report the truth, when the truth can get them killed by criminals and at the same time abused — if not physically attacked by the officials who should be protecting them.
The members of the Overseas Press Club of America, which has been defending freedom of the press around the world for seven decades, grieve for our colleagues in Mexico. We urge you to take every step you can to make local and national officials aware that a free press is the great support of Mexican democracy, the watchdog of liberties. That so many officials appear insensible of this view is amazing to us, and an insult to their more honorable colleagues.
Respectfully yours,
Jeremy Main
Kevin McDermott
Freedom of the Press Committee
cc:
Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza
Attorney General
Avenida Paseo de la Reforma, Nos. 211-213
Mexico, DF, C.P. 06500
Mexico
Fax: (202) 728.1698
Olga María del Carmen Sánchez
Ministra
Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación
Pino Súarez, No.2
Colonia Centro, México, DF
México
Fax: (011.525.55) 522.0152
Genaro David Góngora Pimentel
Ministro Presidente
Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación
Pino Súarez, No.2
Colonia Centro, México, DF
México
Fax: (011.525.55) 522.0152
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. Antonio O. Garza, Jr.
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
Lcda. Rosario Robles
Presidenta
Partido de la Revolución Democrática
Huatusco # 37, 5o. piso
Col. Roma Sur, México, DF
Mexico
Fax: (011.52.55) 5207.1200
Patricia Mercado Sanchez
Editor
El Economista
Mexico, DF
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
alfredo_corchado@harvard.edu
Jorge Luis Sierra
jlsierrag@yahoo.com