“We are obliged to solve this crime and prevent the killings of journalists and citizens from continuing. And we have self-confidence because we are different, we are different from the previous rulers … ”. This is part of what President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said yesterday when he was questioned during his press conference about the murder in Tijuana, last Sunday, of journalist Lourdes Maldonado, the same as what he said in the press conference on March 26, 2019. lives because of a labor lawsuit he filed against the person who would become governor of Baja California in December of that year, Jaime Bonilla of Moreno.
Maldonado was killed a week after photojournalist Margarito Martínez Esquivel was killed in the same city.
Regarding these two murders that took place during her administration of almost three months, the Morenista governor Marina del Pilar Ávila said yesterday: “we are going to use the full power of the state to guarantee that justice prevails (…) I have asked the Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to follow up on these cases so that they can be resolved as soon as possible … ”.
The words of AMLO and Marina are similar to those previously spoken by other officials, from presidents of the Republic to municipal presidents, by governors, prosecutors, lawyers and secretaries or directors of public safety. They promised in all cases that they would arrest the material and intellectual writers of the murders of journalists, that these crimes would not go unpunished, that such reprehensible acts would shake society and that they would not be repeated.
Worst of all, they promise to find the culprits knowing that impunity in these cases is 95% to 99 percent.
Since 1983, which was the first year of President Miguel de la Madrid’s neoliberal government, to date, 338 journalists have been killed (es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Periodistas_asesinados_en_México).
For six years, 35 have been killed in De la Madrid, 25 in Salinas, 21 in Zedillo, 35 in Fox, 110 in Calderón, 85 in Peña Nieto and 27 so far in those of Lopez Obrador.
Despite these numbers, neither the federal nor the state governments have accepted their responsibility to solve so many murders.
For example, in El Economista, a note appeared by Jorge Monroy on October 22, 2021 in which he reported that “out of 92 murders of journalists registered from 2010 to last July, the Special Prosecutor for Attention to Crimes Against Freedom of expression (FEADLE) recognized only in 27 of their jurisdiction, ensuring that only in that number of cases the crimes are related to the journalistic activity of the victim (…) In the same period, the prosecution indicated, there is’ a record of only five sentences; one achieved in 2016 (…) two in 2020 and two this year ”.
Five sentences mean that only those responsible for 5% of the 92 murders were convicted; 95 percent impunity.
Unfortunately, the promises made by AMLO, Marina and many others are false, hypocritical and identical to those made by previous rulers. Even sadder is to know that they will continue with impunity to kill journalists in Mexico.
Facebook: Eduardo J Ruiz-Healy
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Opinion writer, columnist, lecturer, media trainer, 35 years of media experience, micro-entrepreneur.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx