Mexico Accused of Suppressing Freedom of Speech Over Hit Documentary Jo Tuckman - The Guardian
go to original November 14, 2013

Presumed Guilty - Behind the Lens (POV Interactive)

MEXICO CITY - When Presumed Guilty – the nightmarish tale of a street vendor in Mexico City who was twice wrongly convicted of murder – was released in 2011, it won an Emmy for investigative journalism, broke Mexican box-office records, and triggered a fierce debate over the country's dysfunctional judicial system.

Nearly three years later, as important legal rulings are expected in two cases over the documentary, the film is banned in Mexico and the director has recieved death threats.

"The caller told me to tone things down or else," said Roberto Hernández. "The first threat was veiled, the second directly said they would kill me."

Hernández and his team set out to highlight the number of innocent people in the capital's jails through the story of a street vendor convicted of murder on very flimsy evidence amid obvious abuses of authority and due process. Less than a month after it was released in Mexico, the film was banned, but it became a pirate DVD sensation, raising hopes that the country's courts might be forced to clean up their act.

Read the rest at The Guardian

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