Few Convictions for Mexico's Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Journalists Tim Johnson - McClatchy Newspapers
go to original May 17, 2013

Laura Borbolla Moreno, seen in her office in Mexico City, Mexico, is Mexico's special federal prosecutor for crimes against journalists. (Tim Johnson/MCT)

MEXICO CITY — Complacent. Ineffective. Bungling. Inept.

The adjectives pile up as top editors, writers and free press advocates level their aim at the division of the Attorney General’s Office in Mexico responsible for prosecuting crimes against journalists.

Reporters and photographers keep getting killed. By one count, 84 have been slain since the year 2000. More than a dozen others have disappeared. Threats against journalists are so frequent that large swaths of the country simply are without media coverage of crime and corruption. Yet top federal investigators can barely make a single prosecution stick.

“The message from authorities is clear. In Mexico . . . it is all right to kill or to attack journalists. It is all right because you can, and there are no consequences,” said Ignacio Rodriguez Reyna, editor of the weekly magazine emeequis – whose name is the way Mexicans pronounce the letters “mx.”

Such verbal darts are usually aimed broadly at the federal government, but when personalized, the target is often a 35-year-old lawyer, Laura Borbolla Moreno. Her title is special prosecutor for crimes committed against freedom of expression.

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