In Mexico attacks on freedom of expression are not punished, such cases are on the increase and so impunity is further undermining justice. This assertion stems from a fundamental fact that the IAPA has been able to confirm – that there is not one case of the murder or disappearance of a journalist in the last 20 years where those responsible are in prison serving sentence.

There are palpable examples of the scant political will to protect freedom of expression. Congress, for example, has not passed any reform that would enable crimes committed against journalists to be made federal offenses, despite saying it would do so. Another example is the recent public acknowledgement on the part of the special prosecutor in the Attorney General’s Office, Gustavo Salas, who declared in early December in a forum at the University of Texas in El Paso – held by the IAPA and the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) – that when he had taken office in 2010 (the special prosecutor’s office was formed in 2006) there was no database on the cases of murders of journalists, nor any follow-up of these, not even any data concerning the vehicles in which a number of the journalists had been abducted nor an analysis of the pattern the attacks were following. For more than three years the public prosecutor’s office practically conducted no investigation.

While these conditions make the work that the IAPA carries out more difficult, they also make the results of achievements they obtain more important. In 2009, based on a request and agreements reached with editors and publishers, the IAPA came up with a proposed transformation of the Special Prosecutor’s Office that it presented to the Executive Branch, which included a change of its name due to its notorious inefficiency. In February 2010, through the Interior Ministry, an IAPA mission was informed that this public prosecutor’s office would have a new person in charge and would undergo changes in its structure, which have been major ones, although still insufficient.

Attacks linked to drug traffickers continue to be the main causes of disappearances and murders in 2010. A total of 11 cases were reported and investigated by the RRU Mexico. But the high degree of impunity and lack of action by federal and state authorities have led the IAPA to have recourse to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in search of justice. Two of the most relevant cases are those of journalist Benjamín Flores González, killed in San Luis Río Colorado in 1997, and publisher Francisco Ortiz Franco, murdered in Tijuana in 2004. New documentation on these unsolved cases was submitted to the IACHR in October and July this year.

Regarding Ortiz Franco, the action before the IACHR and the documentary aired on June 22, 2010 led the Attorney General’s Office, through its specialist prosecutor’s office and the Office of Special Investigation Into Organized Crime (SIEDO in its Spanish-language acronym), to take up the inquiries anew and to ask United States authorities for information about alleged perpetrators in jail in that country, according to the Mexican government.

Courses and training

The weakness of the practice of journalism in Mexico and corresponding situation in a system of democratic government with guarantees for freedom of expression have sought to be countered with training in how to improve news coverage in areas of danger.

A seminar was held in Tijuana (in June) and a diagnosis was made of the Coahuila and Durango cases during the IAPA mission to the area which was attended by executives of media in the two states. Also contributing was an online degree course in conjunction with the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM).

The course, titled “The Extent of Organized Crime,” was held from May to August. Taking part were 134 journalists and students from Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, United States, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Ecuador. The teachers participating included more than 30 Latin American professors and journalists who gave guidance in investigative techniques, creativity, ethics, new technologies, feature-writing and law, among other subjects.

It is hoped that in 2011 the Mexican government will turn its promises into action and combat impunity.