But “Voces Silenciadas” (Silenced Voices), a documentary film that was part of the Ambulante film festival here, broadens the debate around the persecution of journalists to encompass the bigger issues of media ownership and the relationship between the media and Mexico’s political powers.

Director Maria del Carmen De Lara doesn’t simply examine the dozens of unsolved cases of murdered and disappeared journalists in Mexico over the last couple of years –- she delves deeper, looking at media monopolies in Mexico and how those affect press freedom more broadly.

The film uses the departure of Carmen Aristegui , one of Mexico’s most prominent and respected journalists, from W Radio in January of last year as her starting point.

Aristegui’s “Hoy Por Hoy” morning news program had been on for five years and was one of the most listened to in Mexico when it was cut from the airwaves. Aristegui has since returned to radio news on a different network, but De Lara says her case shows how concentrated media ownership in Mexico has reduced the range of opinions in Mexico’s media and silence unwanted ones.

You can see Aristegui explain the circumstances behind her case in the video below, first shown in this La Plaza post.

In the documentary, De Lara makes her point mostly through a series of interviews with prominent Mexican journalists, analysts and writers, as well as media executives. Those interviews are interspersed with an audio recording of her repeatedly calling Televisa, part owner of W Radio, for an interview about Aristegui’s case — an interview that is eventually granted but sheds no new light on the case. Mexico’s giant Grupo Televisa multimedia company and Grupo Prisa, Spain’s largest media conglomerate, are joint owners of W Radio.

The format of the documentary is where it sags because the film is mainly a series of talking heads, sometimes accompanied by images of satirical cartoons snipped from Mexican newspapers. None of the visual material does justice to the urgency of the problems facing the press here in Mexico, which is a shame, because the issues of freedom of expression and violence against journalists here are serious.

The latter continues to hobble many media workers in Mexico, especially those who cover organized crime and the government, and has created a culture of self-censorship.

But De Lara’s interviewees do make a great case.

On leaving the cinema, I was disappointed as a viewer with the format of the documentary and didn’t feel I’d learned anything I didn’t already know.  But on reflection, it occurred to me that foreign journalists were not the target audience of this film. The cinema is a good place to reach at least some average Mexican citizens, most of whom get their news from television. A massive 92% of Mexico’s television stations are owned by just two companies -– Televisa and TV Azteca -– which is De Lara’s point.

“I want the people to see the whole story that has been the struggle for a different kind of journalism in Mexico, a journalism that’s more diverse and inclusive,” she said in a telephone interview from Puebla, Mexico.

“That they understand what are the pressures for journalists, that the people understand another view of things, that they have other information, which this documentary has also done, for history.”

She also said she wants to show that, since the 1984 assassination of one of Mexico’s most prominent journalists, Manuel Buendia, Mexico “continues to have situations of impunity and situations that violate fundamental human rights.”

At the time of writing, there was no distribution deal signed to take the documentary to the United States, but De Lara was in conversations about possibly showing the film in London.

– Written for la Plaza.

Image: A publicity poster for the documentary “Voces Silenciadas” (Silenced Voices). Credit: Ambulante.com.mx. Video: Deborah Bonello / Los Angeles Times

The special prosecutor’s office for crimes against journalists, created in 2006 by the Mexican government of then-President Vicente Fox, is ineffective, lacks independence and is poorly funded, according to a report by the international freedom of expression nonprofit group Article 19.

Speaking at a news conference in the Casa Lamm cultural center in Mexico City on Friday, Dario Ramirez, head of Article 19 here, said the role of the FEADP, or Fiscalia Especial Para la Atencion de Delitos Cometidos Contra Periodistas, had not been adequately defined.

“That means that the scope of prosecution and protection is limited and ambiguous,” Ramirez said.

Article 19 says that 29 journalists have been killed and eight have disappeared in Mexico since 2000. Most cases remain unsolved, in part because of the inefficacy of the FEADP, according to the nonprofit. It and other organizations claim that a “culture of impunity” exists in Mexico, created by the failure to bring to justice those who kill or harass journalists.

“The inability to resolve these cases not only contributes to the climate of impunity, but it encourages future aggressions,” Ramirez said.

Sanjuana Martinez, a Mexican journalist who received death threats after reporting the alleged sexual abuse of young boys by Catholic priests in the United States and Mexico, also attended the launch of the report.

”We have a saying here in Mexico: If you want to hide something, create an attorney general’s office,” she said.

Only a few months ago, the head of the FEADP, Octavio Orellana Wiarco, said that reports of violence against journalists in Mexico were being exaggerated and that “there is a mistaken perception that Mexico is the country where the largest number of homicides of journalists takes place. This is not true.”

His comments sparked incredulity among Mexican journalists and their defenders.

Ramirez was keen to stress that the purpose of the Article 19 report is not to demand the termination of the FEADP but rather to adjust it to make it a stronger, more effective institution.

The statement from the nonprofit recommended — among other things — changing the focus of the legal body from protecting journalists to protecting freedom of expression and to improving the FEADP’s transparency and accountability.

– Written for La Plaza

Here in Mexico, we keep our eye on the frequent press-freedom reports that come out, given the high levels of violence against journalists in the country and the culture of impunity that abounds.

Tuesday’s release by the Committee to Protect Journalists, sadly, held no surprises.

The organization ranked Mexico among the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists:

“Growing violence associated with criminal organizations has made Mexico one of the world’s deadliest countries for reporters. Since 2000, at least 24 journalists have been killed, eight in direct reprisal for their work. Seven other journalists have disappeared since 2005.”

About Latin American in general, the organization reports:

“Powerful drug traffickers in Mexico, gangsters in Brazilian slums, paramilitaries in Colombia,and violent street gangs in El Salvador and Guatemala are terrorizing the press. Self-censorship is widespread.”

The U.K.-based Frontline blog begins on a positive note about Colombia’s journalists, remarking that “according to the Foundation for Liberty and Freedom of the Press, no Colombian journalists were killed in 2008 for the first time in 23 years.”

But it goes on to say that a total of 130 journalists were killed in Colombia in the past 30 years. The CPJ reports:

“While violence in Colombia has eased in the last four years, it remains one of the world’s most murderous countries for the press. Forty reporters, photographers and editors in all have been killed since 1992, and the country has the highest per capita rate of unsolved journalist murders in Latin America.”

And 2009 has already got off to a bad start for Colombian journalists, continues Frontline.

According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, Maria Eugenia Guerrero, a Colombian journalist, was found dead on the outskirts of the Ecuadorian city of Tulcannear earlier this month,

“[Guerrero], who was working for the Integracion Estereo station in the southern Colombian city of Ipiales, was brutally assaulted and killed and her body was left in a remote area outside Tulcan. … The body, according to the forensics report, showed signs of sexual assault, and it is presumed the journalist was killed in a violent manner because a portion of her skull was not found and had presumably been detached as a result of a severe blow.” link

– Written for La Plaza

Febrero 6 2009 – Para ver la entrevista completa (40 minutos), haz click  aquí.

When your humble correspondent arrived for the launch at the beautiful bookshop Libreria Rosario Castellanos, the raven-haired writer was posing for an all-male squad of newspaper photographers. In a country where journalists are killed for poking their noses into dark places and challenging the powers that be, Cacho has become something of a hero for doing just that and surviving, albeit by the skin of her teeth.

The photo session was brief, and then it was on with the business of launching her latest book — a manual for parents in Mexico to help them recognize if their children are being abused and, if so, what they can do about it. That might seem like a rather strange subject for a book, but it is the product of Cacho’s rather harrowing experience.

The sexual abuse of minors is a topic she has specialized in, and Cacho has been the victim of harassment due to her investigations into the issue.

She was a relatively unknown journalist until she published a book in 2006 that alleged the existence of a child sex ring in the southern state of Cancun, after which she was illegally arrested and harassed by some of the powerful men she implicated in “Los Demonios del Eden” (see more details of the case here).

She catapulted to fame when she challenged her aggressors by going public and filing a legal action against them — although it was ultimately unsuccessful.

Since then, Cacho has become something of a symbol for the issue of the repression of journalists and freedom of expression in Mexico. Her last book, “Memories of a Disgrace (Memorias de una Infamia)” detailed the events that unfolded after the publication of “Los Demonios del Eden.”

Speaking to a packed auditorium on Thursday, Cacho said that after “Los Demonios del Eden” was published, she was inundated by more than 3,000 e-mails from people who were worried their children were being abused, or who knew their children had been abused and didn’t know what to do about it. That prompted her to write “Not With My Child,” which she says is an effort to answer the questions she received from her anxious public.

“My intention was that it would be as though I was accompanying the people reading it,” said Cacho.

She was joined on Thursday by journalist Carmen Aristegui, herself no stranger to being silenced. Her prominent and critical morning talk show on the capital’s W Radio was cut last January after five years on air (read the details here).  At the time, the outspoken broadcaster, who continues to host a show on CNN Espanol, said that she suspected her head had been called for by powerful members of President Felipe Calderon’s administration. Aristegui launched a new show on a different network this morning.

She commended Cacho on Thursday for seeking solutions and changes to the problem of child abuse in Mexico.

“We know it”s there and is something that we have to confront,” she said.

“Not With My Child” includes chapters on the history of pedophilia and the sexual abuse of children, as well as how to negotiate Mexico’s ineffective justice system. Cacho says that building strong social networks is one of the most important means of detecting and putting a stop to child abuse in Mexico.

“Not With My Child” is published by Editorial Grijalbo, of Random House Mondadori.

– This post was written for La Plaza

Photo: Journalist Lydia Cacho holds up her new book for the cameras at a launch event in Mexico City.  Credit: Deborah Bonello / Los Angeles Times.

A television, radio and print advertising campaign called “What you don’t know can hurt you (“Te hace daño no saber” in Spanish)” is to launch here in Mexico in an attempt by press freedom groups to raise public awareness about violence against journalists and to demand more action from the government of President Felipe Calderon.

At a candlelit presentation Tuesday night in the Interactive Economy Museum in downtown Mexico City, domestic and international organizations announced the campaign to an audience of several hundred people. They hope to bring an end to what they claim is impunity for those who commit crimes against journalists in Mexico.

Since 2000, 28 journalists have been killed in Mexico and eight have disappeared, according to Article 19, one of the organizations sponsoring the advertising campaign. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission says the figure is actually higher and that 45 journalists have been killed in the same period. Mexico is the deadliest country in the Americas for journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders, and reporters who cover organized crime are especially at risk.

In recent weeks, Miguel Angel Villagomez Valle, editor of the newspaper La Noticia, was killed in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state. Also killed were David Garcia Monroy, columnist for El Diario, in Chihuahua, and reporter Jose Armando Rodriguez Carreon, also of El Diario, in Ciudad Juarez.

“The response of the Mexican state in all of these cases has been the same — immunity for those behind the crimes,” said Brisa Solis, executive director of the National Center of Social Communication (CENCOS), another of the groups supporting the campaign.

Expressing solidarity were several Mexican journalists, including Lydia Cacho, who has become a symbol of the persecution of journalists here in Mexico.

Cacho says that she was arrested illegally, taken to the end of a pier and told to jump by state police from Puebla after she published a book alleging the existence of a pedophile ring in Cancun in 2005. Her case against her alleged aggressors went all the way to Mexico’s Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled, controversially, that although there was evidence of crimes against Cacho, her rights weren’t violated enough to warrant further action.

“The defense of our reporters is a vital factor in the guarantee of our access to information, and to make decisions in a free, autonomous way,” Cacho said during last night’s event.

The first phase of the campaign — which opens in the media today — will be aimed at raising awareness, and the second phase will take more of an advocacy approach. The campaign is being supported by a number of press freedom nonprofits: The Global Latin America Community Radio Assn. (AMARC), the Mexican Assn. for the Right to Information (AMEDI), Women’s Communication and Information (CIMAC), Fundacion Manuel Buendia, the Institute for Security and Democracy (INSYDE), Reporters Without Borders, The National Journalism Prize, the Mexican Press and Democracy Foundation (PRENDE), Universidad Iberoamericana, the Rory Peck Trust and the National Press Editors Assn. It is being funded by CENCOS and Article 19.

TV spots for the campaign show the names of journalists who have been killed or disappeared in Mexico. The names appear over a white background, until they eventually obliterate all of the white.

This post was written for La Plaza, LATimes.com.

Photo: One of the campaign ads, which asks: “If they’re not there, who is going to inform us?” Credit: Article 19.

*Edited Dec 5th, 2008, 9:35a.m Mexico City time. The campaign is being supported, but not funded, by a range of non-profits. It is being funded by Article 19 and Cencos.

The Attorney General’s office, which represents a special office set up to investigate crimes against journalists in Mexico (Fiscalía Especial para la Atención de Delitos Contra Periodistas, FEADP), issued the arrest warrants. The names of those who are under arrest warrant have not been published, and it is not known whether Mario Marin, the governor of Puebla who was implicated in the illegal arrest of Cacho, is amongst them.

Cacho was arrested by Puebla police on December 16th 2005 in her home state of the Yucatan following the publication of her book called Los Demonios Del Eden, in which she alleged the Cancun-based businessman Jean Succar Kuri was the leader of a pedophile ring that involved luring young and poor girls to his home so that he and his friends could have sex with them.

She also linked a number of state officials and other businessmen to the shady network, and Marin was implicated in her illegal detention. Phone conversations revealed by the daily La Jornada and broadcast on W Radio between Marin and local businessman Kamel Nacif, a friend of one of the architects of the child sex ring Jean Succar Kuri, featured the governor and the company boss joking that Cacho should be raped during her transfer.

On the tape Nacif Borge calls Marin “my precious governor,” and Marin calls the businessman “my hero” as the two celebrate Cacho’s arrest.

After a brief detention, Cacho was released and became the first woman in the country to file a federal suit against a governor, district attorney and a judge for corruption and attempted rape in prison. But Cacho’s efforts for justice at the Supreme Court of Mexico proved disappointing, after the Court rejected a report by its own Commission that found that Marin and 29 of his officials had conspired to violate Cacho’s rights.

Marin walked.

Cacho later alleged that some of the Supreme Court judges – who 48 hours earlier looked as though they were going to vote in her favor, had been paid off by Marin’s lawyers.

It now appears that Cacho could be dealt justice through the FEADP, a special legal team put in charge of investigating crime against journalists during the Fox Presidency. The Office has largely been regarded as toothless until now, but arrest warrants for the public employees are in front of a district judge. It is not clear what the next step will be – but stay tuned.

The news coincides with a fact finding mission taking place in Mexico this week which is a joint initiative by a number of domestic and international NGOs.

According to a press release from Article 19: ‘The central objective of the mission is to evaluate the situation of freedom of expression and press freedom in regions in the north and south of the country, these include Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán, and Sonora. The aim is to provide support to local media organisations/unions, and to raise awareness about the risks that media workers face. In addition it will, by means of the establishment of a dialogue with federal and state authorities, and other bodies relevant for the full exercise of freedom of expression, promote exploration of the viability of remedies/instruments created to address the issue.’

Go the press centre for Article 19 to see the release.

The organisations participating include ARTICLE 19, International Media Support (IMS), Asociación Mundial de Radios Comunitarias (AMARC), Rory Peck Trust Fund, Reporters Without Borders, International Federation of Journalists, International News Safety Institute (INSI), Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (Colombia), International Press Institute (IPI), Inter Amercan Press Association (SIP), Open Society Institute (OSI) and UNESCO.

OAXACA — At the beginning of the month, two presenters for a community radio station in San Juan Copala, Oaxaca state, in southeast Mexico, were shot dead when traveling on the highway connecting Joya del Mamey to Putla de Guerrero.

The dead, Felicitas Martínez Sánchez and Teresa Bautista Merino were both in their early twenties and worked for La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (The Voice That Breaks the Silence), a community radio station run mainly by young adults and teenagers from the Triqui indigenous community.

Four other people were wounded in the attack, which took place between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. (local time) on 7 April 2008, according to information released by the Centro de Apoyo Comunitario Trabajando Unidos A.C. (CACTUS) – a civil society organisation that works in the area.

CACTUS human rights work coordinator Omar Esparza indicated that “the group had gone out to do reporting and interview people. They were indigenous reporters carrying out a task assigned by the community authorities.”

The attack was condemned by Reporters Without Borders, Article 19 and AMARC – the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters. All three NGOs called for a clarification of the events of that day, protection of the survivors, punishment of the perpetrators and an end to impunity for people who commit crimes against journalists in Mexico in a joint statement.

PUEBLA – In the same week, the launch of Lydia Cacho’s book was obstructed in the city of Puebla, the capital of the state of the same name, which is governed by Mario Marin – the state governor implicated in her book about a paedophile ring in Cancun.

Cacho, who launched the book ‘Memorias de una infamia’ in Mexico City earlier this year (pictured), launched the book in Puebla on April 5th. Prior to its launch, a billboard advertising the book was taken down by state police.

Norma Bautista, communications chief for Random House Mondadori publishers, told “El Universal” newspaper that, on 14 March, her company erected a billboard in the city of Puebla to advertise the book’s publication.

“We were later told that the advertisement had been removed because the structure was unsafe,” said Bautista. However, the billboard structure remained in place; only the advertisement had been removed and replaced with another.”

El Universal also reported that Cacho alleged Marin launched a campaign of intimidation prior to the launch of the book.

SINALOA – Finally, the conviction of four men for the 2004 murder of photographer Gregorio Rodríguez Hernández was welcomed by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists.

Rodríguez was gunned down in front of his family in a cafeteria in the town of Escuinapa on November 28, 2004. The 35-year-old photographer worked for the Mazatlán edition of the newspaper El Debate.

Armed men approached Rodríguez when he was eating with his wife and sons, 3 and 6, and opened fire, according to The Associated Press and local news reports. He was shot at least five times, news reports said.

But freelance journalist and organized crime reporter Michel Marizco, who covers the Mexican border with the United States through his site BorderReporter.com, sees it another way.

He says, in a column for The News here in Mexico which is also published here on his website, that the 11 years sentences handed down to former police chief Abel Enríquez Zavala and the three hitmen working for police at the time – Pedro Salas Franco, Francisco Pineda Sarmiento, and Elías Álvarez González – is a sad reflection of how Mexico has receded over the last few years.

“Rodriguez is dead but I hope his case stays alive. First, because 11 years for a pre-meditated murder is inexcusable. Secondly, his killing shows that there is no battle being waged between good and evil, security forces versus criminals. The line between the two blurred long ago.

“It’s now indistinguishable.”

In February this year, the car of Mexican journalist Estrada Zamora was found empty on the side of the road in the southern state of Michoacán with its engine running. Zamora was not inside and has not been seen since.

Click on the link above to read the full article, published today by Index on Censorship.

Dr. Agnes Callamard, executive director of the group, said in a statement that the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for violence against journalists is ‘one of the most alarming characteristics of the overall human rights situation in Mexico’.

Mexico is still the deadliest country in the Americas for journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Her words follows news yesterday that the parents of murdered IndyMedia journalist Brad Will are to launch their own independent investigation into the death of their son more than a year ago following a ‘disappointing’ official investigation by a Mexican Attorney General.

Persecuted journalist Lydia Cacho, who was imprisoned and tortured after writing a book about a child sex ring in Cancun, recently published a book about her experiences as the hands of the powerful in Mexico.

Cacho was told by the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Louise Arbour that she should get out of Mexico to avoid more rights violations when the Commissioner visited Mexico in February.

‘This statement is motivated by the silence and seeming lack of political will of the present Government, led by President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, to comply with the obligations of the Mexican State to prevent and investigate human rights violations within its national territory, including those committed by third parties, and bring to justice those responsible.

‘The resulting circle of violence, danger, impunity, and self censorship is deeply affecting Mexican democracy, and is preventing the free circulation of ideas and information.’

Some steps have been made in tackling the high levels of violence. The Special Prosecution Office for the Investigation on crimes against journalists (FEADP) was created by the General Attorney’s Office on the15th of February 2006. That year also saw the introduction of new laws on the protection of sources and on the decriminalization of defamation at the federal district level.

The United Nations has also taken steps, albeit small ones. In December, the Security Council condemned attacks against journalists in general a UN Resolution. It included a series of recommendations for every state in the framework of international humanitarian law, which includes Mexico.

But despite the legislation and legal bodies in place to confront these crimes, they continue to occur and to go unpunished.