A journalist forced to flee, another murdered in lawless Mexico

Reporters Without Borders voices its support for “Sin Censura” (Without Censorship), a event due to take place in Mexico City on 11 July, in which books will be sold to raise funds to help the many Mexican journalists who are forced to flee the region where they live. Those who have fled after receiving threats in connection with their work include Emilio Lugo, editor of the Agoraguerrero news website, who fled the southwestern state of Guerrero on 16 April after failing to obtain protection by the authorities. Lugo told Reporters Without Borders he received anonymous “warnings” – some of them on Twitter – after posting an article about a federal police officer’s presumed murder in Acapulco, Guerrero, on 12 March. He immediately filed a complaint and then notified the federal prosecutor general’s office, which told him it could not provide him with protection at his Acapulco home and advised him to stay in a hotel. As suggested, he moved to a hotel with his wife and stayed in it for a month. Lugo finally left Guerrero with the help of the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, an interior ministry offshoot. In an article posted on Agoraguerrero on 24 June, he condemned the state of Guerrero’s inability to “guarantee free access to information and free expression,” and blamed Governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero. With the help of a journalist still in Guerrero, Lugo is continuing to post information on Agoraguerrero and social networks about violence in his home state but he told Reporters Without Borders that it would be “difficult to continue this work for very long under these conditions.” Created in 2009, Agoraguerrero has been subjected to various forms of pressure from the Guerrero government because it has been critical of the authorities and because it has covered violence in the region. In 2011, the government asked Lugo to close the site, offering him a grant to dedicate himself to other activities. He declined the offer. “The Federal Mechanism still needs to prove itself”, Reporters Without Borders said. “It has the merit of existing even if it does not yet offer sufficient guarantees to journalists and bloggers so that they can continue operating in their own region regardless of the threats to which they are exposed. This mechanism will not be fully effective until the authorities commit fully to combating impunity.” “Unconfirmed” murder Reporters Without Borders also deplores the reluctance of the authorities to provide information about most murders of journalists as well as the absence of any serious effort on their part to solve them. The latest example is the case of Mario Ricardo Chávez Jorge, a journalist whose body was found on 25 June in Ejido Santa Clara, near the US border, in the state of Tamaulipas. According to unofficial sources, gunmen kidnapped Chávez – who worked for El Ciudadano, a newspaper created last year – as he left a cinema in Ciudad Victoria with his family three and a half weeks ago. This has not, however, been confirmed by the authorities. “They are providing no information to the media about this murder”, Humberto de la Garza of El Redactor told Reporters Without Borders. “The government is keeping what it knows to itself”, he added. “An investigation must be carried out at once into this murder in order to identify the perpetrators and the motive”, Reporters Without Borders said. “The investigators should not rule out the possibility that it was linked to the victim’s work.” “Providing the public with information about the acts of violence that take place in Mexico is also important”, Reporters Without Borders added. “Covering up what happens is to be an accomplice to impunity.” A total of 87 journalists have been killed in the past decade, while 17 others have disappeared. And, because of threats, 26 journalists are currently living abroad or in a different part of the country from their place of residence. Cartoon : Rapé