As World Looks to Paris, Violence Against Journalists Rages on in Mexico Cleuci de Oliveira - Latin America Dispatch
go to original January 20, 2015

Journalists in Mexico City protesting violence and threats against their colleagues.

On Jan. 2, sometime after 7 p.m., a group of heavily armed men stormed the modest house of journalist Moisés Sánchez Cerezo in Medellín de Bravo, in the Mexican state of Veracruz. They confiscated a computer, a camera and a cell phone, and carried Sánchez Cerezo away while his son looked on.

He has not been heard from since.

The kidnapping and disappearance of Sánchez Cerezo occurred five days before the Paris terror attacks that began at the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo and claimed 17 lives. As the Twitter hashtag #JeSuisCharlie trended worldwide, and world leaders linked arms ahead of a historic march in the streets of Paris, Mexican activists staged a separate series of protests against censorship of the press: they demanded answers over the disappearance of Sánchez Cerezo, and an end to the epidemic of violence against journalists in Mexico.

The latest edition of Charlie Hebdo came out last Wednesday — the first since the attacks. By depicting the prophet Mohammed on the cover, the magazine conveyed that it will “cede nothing” to violent censors, as its lawyer, Richard Malka, told France Info radio on Monday.

“We will not give in,” Malka said. “The spirit of ‘I am Charlie’ means the right to blaspheme.”

In Mexico, journalists can barely conduct their jobs, let alone satirize figures of authority. Targeted attacks against media professionals, which surged after former President Felipe Calderón launched a war against drug cartels in 2006, have made it increasingly treacherous for local journalists to report on cartel members or corrupt public officials. Threats of violence, in turn, nurture a culture of self-censorship among journalists concerned about retaliation.

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