Mexico and Brazil Lead Americas in Impunity for Murders of Journalists Teresa Mioli - Knight Center
go to original October 11, 2015

Impunity Must End Now (OSCE)

Colombia dropped off the Committee to Protect Journalist’s (CPJ) 2015 Global Impunity Index that was released Oct. 8, leaving Mexico and Brazil as the sole Latin American countries in the list of the top 14 countries where murderers of journalists “go free.”

For the index, CPJ looks at unsolved murders that occurred in the previous decade for “which journalism is the confirmed motive.” The exact dates considered are Sept. 1, 2005 to Aug. 31, 2015. The organization said it includes countries with five or more unsolved cases in which no convictions have been obtained.

...Mexico now stands at the 7th place on the list with 19 journalists who have been “murdered with complete impunity over the last decade,” according to CPJ. That is out of 23 murder cases documented by CPJ in the last decade in which the motive was confirmed to be related to journalistic work.

The country also has a federal mechanism for protection of journalists, but critics have pointed to its ineffectiveness since it was created in 2012.

The death of photojournalist Rubén Espinosa in August caught international attention as it took place in Mexico City, a place long-considered a safe haven for Mexican journalists from elsewhere in the country who felt threatened for their work. He and four women, including Veracruz activist Nadia Vera were brutally killed. To this date, three people have been detained, but police have not confirmed a motive, as reported by Article 19.

Read the rest at Knight Center

Related: Mexico Press Freedom: Government Authoritarianism Exercised by Closing Microphones and Opening Checkbooks (Mexico Voices)

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