Attacks against the press in Mexico have increased by 85% since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office, making it the most deadly period for journalists since records began, according to a new report.
Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists with 1,945 attacks – including 33 murders – between 2019 and 2021, according to the press freedom group Article 19. Another eight have been killed so far this year.
In 2021, there were 664 documented attacks – the equivalent of one every 14 hours – including online threats, harassment, arbitrary criminal charges and seven murders. Government officials were linked to 274 of the incidents, while organised crime accounted for about 42.
Violence against journalists has been mounting over the past two decades, but has soared under López Obrador, who frequently attacks journalists and independent news outlets during his morning briefings. The populist president has repeatedly downplayed violence against the press, and recently lashed out at the European parliament after its members urged him to rein in the media-bashing rhetoric.
But Article 19’s new report underscores the growing threat media workers across the country have been suffering and warns that “denying this reality results in no urgent measures being taken to stop this brutal spiral of violence”.
Journalists in Mexico face a myriad of threats.
Reporters who cover corruption and politics continue to face the highest risks, followed by breaking news reporters covering shootings, accidents and other disasters. Journalists who cover migration were also targeted with 20 documented attacks, which were often linked to immigrations officials and the national guard.
The murder of Regina Martínez in 2012 began a wave of violence in the state of Veracruz, and exposed the risks faced by local reporters brave enough to investigate the links between politics and organised crime.
“The impact of the murders of journalists is brutal, it affects their families and the profession as a whole,” said Patricia Mayorga, a reporter at the news weekly Proceso. “Society needs to be convinced that without public service journalism, we would not know what is happening in the rest of the country.”
Last year, a global coalition of news organisations reported on widespread illegal hacking under the previous administration, which used the Israeli spyware Pegasus against human rights activists, teachers, academics and journalists. The investigation found that the telephone of Cecilio Pineda, a local crime and politics reporter in the state of Guerrero, was marked for targeting a few weeks before he was murdered in 2017.
Nineteen journalists were murdered during the first three years of Enrique Peña Nieto’s government, and 26 under Felipe Calderón over the same time period.
But López Obrador is the first to vilify journalists so consistently. In 2021, the president and his officials maligned the press at least 71 times, and the same insults were often repeated by private and public figures the same day, according to the report.
“Violence against the press in Mexico is an ongoing tragedy. Democracies have promised journalists guarantees to do their work … without journalism there is no democracy and vice versa,” said Pedro Vaco, special rapporteur for freedom of expression at the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.
