The truth kills

It is not the first time that the European Parliament has highlighted the vulnerable situation in Mexico for journalism and activism. It is also not the first time that it has condemned the inaction of the government headed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to protect journalists and activists and to investigate their crimes.

The human rights situation in the Aztec country is viewed with deep concern on this side of the Atlantic because every minute that passes we see a greater social breakdown, political tension and a greater advance of crime and penetration of the power of drug trafficking in the institutions; in short, in the state. 

In its most recent report, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) points out that this year "57 information professionals" have been murdered and it is also worrying to note the high number of imprisoned journalists, which increased to 533 people in 2022, while 65 journalists remain kidnapped and 49 are missing.

It is increasingly difficult to inform, to investigate, to remain as a bridge between the news and the people who deserve to be informed in an impartial, forceful and above all transparent way. The truth kills because in several countries it costs lives.

What is dismaying is the situation in Mexico, because from the highest echelon of power, its president López Obrador verbally attacks the press almost every day and points out with names, surnames and even showing bank accounts and properties to the journalists he considers a nuisance to himself, his family and his government. He wants to silence them by pointing fingers and in this daily exposure, he lays bare his animosity and becomes a Torquemada against the press.

For him, certain journalists are a nuisance. With his mouth he has lit the bonfire and anyone can strike a match to make himself look good with a dignitary who has made tension, polarisation, hate speech, bitterness and aggravation his main daily political weapon. 

To assassinate a journalist, Javier Fernández Arribas tells me, is to prevent the news from being told and the wrongdoings from being revealed to the people.

The president of the International Press Club reiterates that a democratic society deserves professionals carrying out their work in the best possible conditions so that citizens can be as well informed as possible and thus make the decisions they deem appropriate. 

Good information, reiterated Fernández Arribas, is essential for the health of the democratic system. All the data are chilling, starting with the fact that these are human lives and most of these crimes go unpunished.

In Ukraine, says the seasoned war correspondent, there is a greater chance of death because there are bombings, there are mines and there is also an interest in ensuring that the atrocities that the population is experiencing, or even among the soldiers of one side or the other, do not reach the outside world.

What is unacceptable, and therefore reprehensible, is that a country like Mexico should add the murders of 11 journalists whose names are forgotten and whose cases orbit in the grey zone of impunity. 

Fernández Arribas also unburdens himself with sincerity and adds that in Spain "we have our own", but we wish Mexico "a dear brother country of ours" to have the best living conditions for its citizens, and this means that "the state must respond and guarantee" the safety of all its citizens.

In Spain, the director of Atalayar asked, it had suffered in the same way and recalled that the media were on the side of the terrorist group ETA and even pointed out some people in their reports, and a few days later, these people were assassinated.

With regard to the war, he gave the example of Syria; in this irrational conflict, the al-Qaeda terrorists were murdering and kidnapping journalists and what they were trying to do was to get journalists out of Syria so as not to tell the world about the misdeeds and crimes that the terrorists were committing against the population. "And, unfortunately, they succeeded... this is a way of gaining control of an area". 

"If it is free to assassinate journalists, in some way you are assassinating democracy and the rule of law and, of course, it affects the citizens who want the truth; in the long run, this undermines coexistence," in the words of Fernández Arribas.