Radio Mundo Real

Just starting the year 2015, Mexico was already suffering the first murder of a journalist. Moisés Sánchez, a well known social activist, was captured and killed on January 2nd. The first murder of a journalist in 2016 has unfortunately just happened: Anabel Flores was kidnapped last Monday and her body found in the department of Puebla. Anabel was from the state of Veracruz like Moisés, and like another 15 journalists killed under the government of Javier Duarte.

Organizations and institutions at national and international levels (like Amnesty International and Unesco) have condemned the killing, demanding justice and protection for journalists in Mexico, especially in the state of Veracruz.

Talking with Real World Radio, the photojournalist Mario Marlo from Somos el medio recalls there were protests for this, with rallies of journalists in Mexico City and in the state of Veracruz itself.

Flores covered the so-called “red press” in the newspapers El Sol de Orizaba and El Buen Tono.

According to Marlo, the answers received from the government regarding these murders have been more than weak: it has created the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Freedom of Expression, which works at a national level, and in turn each state has an attorney general to address cases.

However, “so far there has not been any solution in any of the cases; there were people detained for questioning, but regarding sentences for intellectual perpetrators... that has not happened,” Marlo says.

Just like it happened with the cases in July last year in the City of Mexico, with Nadia Vera, Yesenia Quiroz, Rubén Espinosa, Alejandra Negrete, and Mile Virginia Martin (see RWR’s report), Marlo says that as soon as a murder occurs, there is a quick campaign to discredit the journalists or activists killed.

In the case of Anabel, one of the newspapers where she worked set out to discredit her and practically justify her murder.

The organization Article 19, which works to defend free speech and human rights, recently reported that from 2003 to 2016, 23 journalists have disappeared in Mexico.

According to the organization, the most dangerous places for communication work are the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, State of Mexico and Mexico City.