Without Freedom of Expression, Mexico's 'Democracy Is a Chimera,' Warns US Ambassador Dolia Estevez - Forbes
go to original May 14, 2015

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Earl Anthony Wayne (Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images)

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Anthony Wayne used the occasion of World Press Freedom Day on May 3 to urge attention to what he called “alarming levels of impunity” in crimes against reporters in Mexico where, “We have yet to see a successful conviction at the federal level for crimes against journalists.”

Article 19, a U.K.-based international press freedom watchdog, reported an 80% increase in acts of aggression (physical attacks, threats, beatings, kidnappings, killings, etc.) against the Mexican press in the two years of the Peña Nieto Administration. The group recorded 656 cases of aggression, including six reporters killed. Most of these crimes go unpunished.

Wayne said that those responsible for attacks and acts of intimidation must be brought to justice, “because impunity is an incentive for further attacks, and also leads to acts of self-censorship. And self-censorship is as effective at silencing a society as acts of violence are.”

Without freedom, particularly freedom of expression, “democracy is a chimera,” Washington’s top diplomat in Mexico warned paraphrasing Mexican poet Octavio Paz.

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