“We do not order the annihilation of anyone,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador clarified yesterday, referring to the more than 30 journalists murdered so far in the current six-year term. Five of these crimes have been committed in the first weeks of this year.
2022 looks bad for the journalistic exercise. If in 2021, Mexico ranked second in the world in homicides of communicators (after Afghanistan, which is at war), perhaps this year we will rise to the first place on such an ominous blacklist. God save the hour.
UNIT. Now, not killing anyone is not a funny concession from the government. It is an obligation, just as it is to protect the constitutional right to free expression.
The journalistic union of the entire country has manifested itself by raising its voice, on the one hand, and by publicly exhibiting its silence, on the other.
In this sense, yesterday and the day before yesterday the reporters who cover the sources of the Chamber of Deputies, that of Senators and the Presidency of the Republic demonstrated in front of the Powers of State, with their fists raised (as reflected in the shocking main photo of yesterday’s printed DEBATE), with words and harangues or, with the group act of turning off microphones, cameras and recorders.
After the simultaneous sit-ins of journalists in the streets of the entire country, as well as in the Congress of the Union on Tuesday, yesterday the collective voice of those of us who practice journalism professionally in Mexico reached the presidential figure.
“Silence has taken over the platform of the National Palace this Wednesday as a sign of protest against the violence against the press,” says the chronicle of the Spanish newspaper El País at the beginning of yesterday’s morning, which ended earlier than usual because the reporters they refused to ask AMLO questions after his new barrage against those who question him. It is the first time that this has happened in more than 790 morning conferences at the National Palace.
Another unprecedented event occurred on Monday: more than 64,000 users joined a “Twitter Space” under the hashtag #TodosSomosLoret. A world record, as is known.
The president accused the use of “robots” in that space, the truth is that Twitter makes it impossible for “bots” and false accounts to enter these massive conversations on its platform. It does not support recent users or without full identification, for example.
WE ARE ALL AND ALL. We are today, friends, facing a before and after in the defense of freedom of expression in Mexico.
Because it is not Loret, we are all and all.
The homicides of communicators are the most visible extreme and also the most painful. But they are the tip of an iceberg that ranges from direct attacks on the reputation of journalists in legislative and government forums, to accusing the publication of a report of “treason against the country” and displaying the alleged income of its author on national television. , Carlos Loret de Mola, in flagrant violation of the Personal Data Protection Law.
The escalation of lynching not only against Loret, but against all the journalists who criticize him, has reached dangerous levels. It has been going on for nearly 20 days and, far from slowing down, it is growing and expanding, with displays and pronouncements in support of the president’s position, as well as by the governors, legislators and mayors of Morena, the hegemonic party.
The line that separates the visceral from the authoritarian is so thin that it seriously worries the most diverse sectors of Mexican society. It remains to wait for a change in the president’s attitude. So be it.
#alive #alive #exercise #free #expression