Lizbeth Hernández, a freelance journalist based in Mexico City, is documenting a rising women’s protest movement against gender-based violence in the country. According to federal data from the Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública (SESNSP), deadly violence against women reached record heights in 2019; more than 1,000 women were murdered because of their gender, an…
Some recent convictions in the cases of journalists murdered in Mexico may give the impression that the state is making significant progress in the fight against impunity. While CPJ has welcomed the convictions as an important step, the outlook for breaking the cycle of impunity and violence in Mexico has grown more dim under President…
Today, on the third anniversary of the murder of her husband, Mexican reporter Javier Valdez Cárdenas, journalist Griselda Triana wrote an open letter calling for justice and describing the ordeal of her family in the wake of his killing. The letter was published in several Mexican news outlets and by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Gildo Garza sighs when he speaks of the institution that is supposed to protect him. “I feel disappointed, depressed, desperate, and alone,” he said. “I no longer have any hope in a system that was supposed to help me build up a new life or get my old life back.”
On June 18, more than 400 people converged in Mexico City for CPJ’s Mexico Press Freedom Summit. Energized by a sense that the country is at a point of profound political change under the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the conference delved into the threats for Mexican journalists.
When Andrés Manuel López Obrador won Mexico’s presidential elections last year with a promise to drastically cut the millions of dollars the government spends on press advertising each year, it appeared to signal the end to an opaque system that has been criticized as a way for governments to encourage favorable coverage.
During his daily press conference on April 15, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told reporters, “If you go too far, you know what will happen.” López Obrador clarified his remarks the following day, saying he meant that the public would hold reporters who unfairly criticize the government to account. But in a country where…