Mexico.- The MX Media Alliance collected the stories of local journalists in nine states of the country; in this second installment they are from the states of Colima, Jalisco and the State of Mexico.
Jalisco: the presence of a war between groups and direct threats prevails over regional journalists
Crime is gradually silencing three regions of Jalisco
Practicing journalism is also a risk in Jalisco, especially in the interior of the state, where authorities and criminal groups intimidate journalists with total impunity.
Consigning the confrontations between groups is considered for some and for others, “being on their side.” Reporters from regions such as Los Altos, southern Jalisco and the Coast region have preferred, in many cases, to forget about police issues or emigrate to the state capital outright.
Regarding the region of the coast of Jalisco, especially towards the south, since 2011 such a scenario could be noticed. The presence of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel and Nemesio Oseguera (a) El Mencho himself had an impact on this. The local media -based on the so-called red note- decreased, the small local newspapers omitted that section and left the big newspapers the exclusivity of dealing with such events, recalls a correspondent in the area.
Media do not investigate
They assure that even the one who “wrote abroad” preferred to send his data and that “my colleagues from the capital helped me with the note and even put their credit.”
When a Navy helicopter, supposedly after the capture of Mencho, was shot down on May 1, everything changed. What happened in the area was revealed, checkpoints were installed and the criminal group left. What did not change is that only a few, very few local media, continued to investigate organized crime and its presence in the area.
In the Los Altos region, a reporter with 17 years of experience and whose name is also omitted for his safety, has suffered violence in the exercise of his informative work.
One day, while covering a shooting and despite the presence of the authorities, he was intimidated by a group of armed civilians who appeared to be from a criminal group.
“They held me, they forced me, they demanded that I somehow delete the work that I had done, delete the social media post that I had put up. I cannot be sure that they were criminals or if they were authorities, since the vehicles they brought did not have signs, nor were they in uniform. Hence the need to standardize the elements”.
groups rule
Given the situation of violence in that area of Jalisco, he has chosen to avoid covering certain municipalities, such as Teocaltiche, where he has not gone as a reporter or visitor for more than 10 years, due to insecurity and checkpoints of organized crime groups.
“Specifically what is Teocaltiche; Villa Hidalgo; the shores of Jalostotitlán; in Encarnación de Díaz, in the Bajío de San José, El Tecuán; in Lagos de Moreno the northern part; Ojuelos in the limits with Zacatecas. To the south side of Los Altos, which is Acatic, I normally never go there. On one occasion I went to a confrontation, I didn’t have any setbacks but it was a very tense situation”.
He also stressed that the intimidation of the authorities who do not want the truth to come to light has been more constant. He was even threatened by a municipal commissioner, who during the entire time he was in command of the police, hindered his information work by preventing him from being present at crime scenes or arrests, under threat of arrest.
Despite the aforementioned, he assured that he will continue to fight, doing the work that he is passionate about, but always preserving life above a cover.
It is noteworthy that on April 30, during the live broadcast, two reporters from Infolínea and La Mexicana 91.3, from Aguascalientes, were chased and threatened by members of organized crime in the municipality of Encarnación de Díaz, when they went to carry out the News coverage after the shooting. They had to be extracted and transferred to their state in the Aguascalientes Police helicopter.
The areas bordering Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes and Michoacán are the ones with the greatest violence due to the conflict over the control and sale of drugs, as well as activities that are profitable for criminal groups.
Self-censorship
In Lagos de Moreno, the radio stations have also given in, they do not broadcast security issues and they opted better for it to come from the state capital, without credit. However, other municipalities in the coastal region, such as Puerto Vallarta, are not exempt from violence against journalists.
It should be remembered that the director of Radio Universidad in Puerto Vallarta, Susana Carreño, suffered an attack with a knife, while leaving her radio program. On October 18, she reappeared at the morning press conference at the National Palace, where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed that the attack was on her because of her journalistic work.
She recovered, but has moved her home and is currently under the protection mechanism.
elizabeth ibal
Colima: Confrontations between the criminal group Los Mezcales and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel
With homicides in the state on the rise, journalists cover as a group.
In two years the life of the people of Colima has practically changed. From being one of the calmest States, a conflict between the Mezcales and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, the result of an alleged high treason, brought about an alteration in the situation in the entity. They have not stopped writing, but the journalists who have this coverage no longer go alone, they go in groups, and their credit rarely appears.
The notes made “from the Writing” -so signed- abound, and it is that “more than one colleague has been scared”.
And it is no coincidence, in Colima homicides are on the rise and all records are being broken in this regard.
According to the spokesman for the State Coordination Table for the Construction of Peace and Security of Colima, Francisco Javier Almazán Torres, 2022 has become the year that
add more intentional homicides since this statistic was kept.
Colima already reports 823 intentional homicides this year, 817 occurred in 2017, and they do not stop. Violence affects women equally, among which there are 100 victims, 18 for femicide and 82 for intentional homicide.
But it extends to women and children (18 minors have died) and journalists have covered cases never seen before, where the remains are deposited (in 112 cases) inside suitcases, bags and blankets.
They have murdered 17 police agents and the journalists in the region have changed their strategy to send their notes, the correspondents of Tecomán and Manzanillo send their notes without credit and those who cover the metropolitan area of Colima and Villa de Álvarez have chosen to go signed “from the writing”, rather than keep total silence to what happens in that entity.
Edgar Zamora
State of Mexico: The letters under surveillance in the south of Edomex
“Either you leave or here you stay”, the last direct threat that forced him to stop being a journalist+
The story has always been watched, but when the point of a gun becomes the corrector, deserting journalism is the only option for a reporter who seeks to carry out his work in the southern zone of the State of Mexico, where fear and anxiety they become a daily companion.
“When they told me ‘either you go or stay here,’ I had no other choice and that same afternoon I got a truck and decided to leave Tejupilco with my family,” said a reporter who experienced firsthand the price of carrying out the work of report in the southern region.
Since you came to work as a reporter in this area, he assured, the rules are very clear: do not mention any criminal group in journalistic articles, especially those related to the issue of security, much less publicize the messages that shelter the corpses that commonly appear in the region.
For almost a year, the anxiety and fear of going to certain areas became familiar with his activity, he indicated, however, the time came when he couldn’t take it anymore and after avoiding telephone threats, the direct confrontation took place. and the obligation to abandon the informative work.
“I remember that day, I was going to get my tortillas and on the street a man stopped me and told me verbatim: you are chopping the devil’s ribs, don’t mess with us, we are many, so either you leave or you stay here”, the interviewee narrated.
This threat, he mentioned, was accompanied by the password of the daily movements not only of him but also of his family, so when he returned home and discussed what had happened, he decided to get a truck and that same afternoon-night the escape.
This, said the interviewee, was unleashed by the coverage of an operation implemented by the municipal authorities in bars and entertainment centers, including billiards. And it is that, he added, in one of many businesses, a man linked to a criminal group pulled out a weapon and threatened everyone.
Despite the fact that he did not publish anything in the regional newspaper where he worked, a column that appeared in the newspaper unleashed the threats that in the end ended with his resignation from his informative work, he established.
“Tejupilco is a small town and they already know who lives there and what they do. In fact, my name and my vehicle were already part of the radio messages that monitored all the movements of suspicious people in the region,” added the reporter.
The truth, he acknowledged, is that you live in anxiety and fear, because you constantly have to move to various points and at any moment you can be intercepted by them.
We already knew that if we entered Amatepec we had to do it carefully, because at that time, the uprisings were the order of the day. On one occasion the glass of my car was destroyed at night and theft was ruled out”, emphasized the interviewee.
Rodrigo Miranda Torres
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