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TETELA DEL VOLCÁN STATE OF MORELOS
Zorro is coming down.
The fucking illegal loggers are up there on the hill again.
OCCUPATION: JOURNALIST
I was ten years old when I bought my first camera.
To capture the moment, immortalize it
and be able to convey what's happening at that moment,
I've loved that since childhood.
Without knowing, I was doing journalism and documenting.
At fifteen,
I joined the Army.
I saw what the Army does. I got sent to Chiapas.
That was a great motivation for trading my rifle for a camera.
At some point, it might happen to you.
You're always taking a risk.
You're always exposed to getting caught working
and then you have to pay for the crime.
Why work cutting down trees?
Sometimes you have no other work option
and you have to do this out of necessity.
Are you afraid of working in this?
Well, there's always a bit of fear
and worry because of the situation
in town and everywhere else regarding work.
I used to do hyperlocal journalism.
I had a news agency called Rural Journalism Agency.
There was something there that had an effect on me.
That you also become part of the story.
Maybe we'll pass by the last ones now.
It's a group of about 40 people…
- Down at the ravine. - Yes.
It was a mess. I got desperate and said,
"I'm staying here and whoever I find, I'll take the PROFEPA to their house.
'Look, this is the one chopping down the trees.'"
As a journalist, it's a mistake to become a protagonist in the story,
but it's inevitable in community radio,
because you can't stay away
from the situation and the social conflicts.
And you're there with the farm workers and the people…
TETELA DEPENDS ON AGRICULTURE. WITHOUT WATER AND TREES, WE DIE!
…who are defending what they believe belongs to the community.
The people must be informed…
ACTIVIST FARMER
…about any work to be developed in their territory.
And after being informed, the people have to decide.
So, if the people aren't being informed,
if the people aren't free to decide,
this can only be called one way:
imposition.
Journalists sometimes wrongly say that we're the voice,
when we're really an amplifier.
We give people the microphone so their voices echo everywhere
and travel outside the borders
and the corners where they're being affected.
That way, they can be noticed, a solution can be found,
and people can make their own judgments
to demand action from the authorities.
I never thought that this could put me at risk.
I wrote stories about people's desperation
as they tried to conquer the American dream
and reach the promised land, a place so many long for
not just to improve their economy or social standing
but to save their lives.
And now, I find myself as one of those migrants,
knocking on the door of a country where I need to be,
because it's where I trust I can live in peace.
In Mexico, I can't have that anymore.
What's happening? Could you explain what's happening at this moment?
TOWNSHIP: COCÓ STATE: CHIAPAS
- Why are you gathered here? - Here?
I'm afraid.
- You're afraid? - I'm afraid, yes.
- What could be heard just now? - They "throw bullet."
Many bullets.
Does this happen every day? How frequently?
Every day, any time. They just shoot.
Did you hear that? Did you hear those shots?
- We're here in Cocó. - Yes.
We heard gunshots a few moments ago.
We just heard more gunshots again.
Are you afraid? How do you feel?
Yes, we're afraid because if we're hit by a bullet,
that's it for us.
We shared the passion for the work we did.
We agreed on what we wanted to do,
that our journalism had to denounce
and be focused on human rights.
IMMIGRANTS DETENTION CENTER STATE OF TAPACHULA
There are journalists here!
Help! My son is sick, look.
- Don't touch me! - They're harming her.
I'm recording!
We began with the migrant issue.
We focused a lot on this issue,
because we saw that there was a lot of violence and abuse against migrants.
No one stood up for them. There were no human rights or activists,
so no one turned to look at them.
Help me! I have a boy.
- What's going on? - He's sick.
- A boy. I have a boy, he's sick. - What's going on?
He's one year and two months old. One year and two months.
Many people here are suffering!
The police beat me a lot. Help!
- More press is coming! - Yes.
They began to…
see us as a nuisance in some corporations,
because when they committed violence in their raids,
we always denounced it with our photos and writings.
I care about calling them out, speaking up and helping people,
and I try to do it
even if it's at the expense of our security.
María de Jesús has been the subject of violence.
They've attacked her and we've kept going.
RODOLFO ROBLES INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE STATE OF CHIAPAS
- Mari! - There are no chairs. On the floor.
Be careful.
It's a deep wound.
We'll examine her now. Hold on a second.
Ma'am, we're doctors.
I thought that I might become an immigrant at some point,
but I also heard the testimonies and thought,
the fact is no one leaves their land without a reason.
We'll get to an office soon.
We'll get to the AC in a minute.
I'm a journalist from Sinaloa, from 2011 to this day.
I've worked mostly on human rights issues and human rights violations.
I often work with victims, displaced people,
the families of people who've been killed, tortured, or disappeared.
And my focus and base have been in Sinaloa.
See that? You can see the piñatas and the witches from here.
PEOPLE WHO WERE DISAPPEARED
- Congratulations, your kid's gorgeous. - He's cute, right?
In order to create a narrative that doesn't re-victimize and criminalize,
I always try to be next to the person or pay attention by listening to them.
And not because I can make a change,
but to be able to understand the context in a different way.
Come here, son.
So, the prosecutor's office doesn't know the number of mass graves,
but they know that they exist.
My job has been to document those places where mass graves exist,
and talk to the night guards, the gravediggers,
so they'd tell me where the bodies were.
We've lived that in the flesh, that indifference…
Most of all, the constant judgments.
"If they were disappeared or taken, there must have been a reason for that.
They were up to something."
We acknowledge the right to memory, to a good memory.
We don't know what happened.
They were disappeared. That's all we know.
That and the fact that they were murdered.
Those are the only two facts we know, and that's it.
What do we want? To learn what happened.
And that's the prosecutor's office's job to solve it.
- Yes, of course. - Right?
Their excuse has been that they don't have the information.
They don't know how many bodies have been found.
So let's give them the number.
IN SINALOA, FROM SEPTEMBER 2006 TO SEPTEMBER 2019,
4,524 PEOPLE DISAPPEARED
AND THE SAME QUESTION. WHEN WILL THEY COME BACK?
UNTIL WE FIND THEM!
Culiacán is a place where thousands of people have been disappeared.
This situation has worsened over the last ten years.
In 2014, I joined a local newspaper and met Mrs. Sandra Luz Hernández.
Her son was disappeared on February 12, 2012.
And she began a movement that at that time was completely unknown.
The government knows about everything.
I've told them straight out. I won't give up.
A MOTHER SEEKING HER SON
I'll be here with you.
I told them that I'll be a pebble in their shoes.
I won't go away. One, because I don't have
contact with criminals to ask them to help me.
And two, I don't have money.
So you're the ones who have to help me, and you will, so I won't go away.
She was in the waiting room, and Sandra Luz told me,
"Hey, let's go to the search.
We're going to search for my son.
I was told they buried him in San Pedro," which is a town close to Culiacán.
And my immediate reaction was to say, "Sure! I'll come with you. When is it?"
"In a few days, we'll let you know."
I didn't fully understand or process it,
and I don't think I do to this day.
But back then, someone disappearing was less impactful,
or someone going and protesting over a disappearance.
And then Sandra Luz was murdered.
Mrs. Sandra's relatives state that she was killed with three bullets
in the streets of the Ayuntamiento neighborhood in Culiacán, Sinaloa.
She dedicated the last two years of her life
to searching for her son, Edgar García Hernández,
who is still missing.
A group of hooded men dragged him out of his house.
Sandra Luz and her case, made me understand…
that something had to be done,
because the worst that could happen did happen,
which is the murder of an activist inside a collective
and so the collective breaks off.
They were very scared.
What's happening must be made public,
the displaced, the disappeared,
the people who've been tortured and kidnapped,
because it shouldn't be happening.
And our job is to keep a record of those cases.
Let's go do some field work.
Let's leave the office behind to go out and work,
talk to people, and with the government too,
because we need to bounce off all this information.
In school, they never tell you,
"When you graduate,
you'll go with someone's family to a clandestine mass grave,
and you'll see how they dig out bones and more,
or maybe they won't find anything,
and they'll cry and break and all of that."
I started having a lot of mental difficulties,
a lot of anxiety.
I also got fed up that there were no changes.
I got tired of seeing even more disappearances.
It's over 600 dead now, Governor. Even more.
Your government has been the second most violent in the history of Sinaloa.
GOVERNOR OF SINALOA
It happened with the missing persons and with other subjects,
with torture cases, cases of forced internal displacements.
I mean, I realized that I'm not going to fix the world,
but my work might help people.
Understanding this and taking that step was like,
"I need to keep doing this."
What is the Morelos Integral Project?
The construction or imposition of the thermoelectric power plant
and the gas pipeline.
They talk about inclusive projects,
that, they say, will benefit society.
The towns don't see what we'll gain from these industry projects.
The Huexca Thermoelectric project
isn't just a thermoelectric project, it's also a mining operation.
It's a big agro-industrial project,
and both need water.
What happened here?
No, I'm asking you.
- Hey! - Where do you come from?
Across the river, in the Apatlaco neighborhood.
The water that flows from here goes to my property.
That's why we're here. I want to know what happened.
Yes, all right. But leave because there's a lot of machinery.
No one's coming through right now. Even the policemen are resting.
The president of Mexico said so himself, in his own words,
that this would be eradicated.
Here, they're diverting the river to extract water.
They were scamming the community.
AREA: CUAUTLA RIVER STATE: MORELOS
They were taking away their river,
and that river contained the springs that supply water
to a part of the population.
I was a witness to all that, and I said it on the radio.
The Peoples' Water and Earth Defense Front said in a release
that President López Obrador
betrayed the people of Morelos, Puebla, and Tlaxcala,
after going back on his campaign promises
about his opposition to the Morelos Integral Project,
and then pushing for the thermoelectric in an illegitimate survey,
given that the native peoples' votes were ignored.
September 29th, 2017 is a turning point.
A week after the earthquake,
I was fixing my motorcycle, and while I was doing that,
an SUV stopped,
big and white.
A shady-looking guy looked at me from the window.
He stuck his hand out and said,
"You're messing with the government, you son of a bitch,
you're going to get fucked."
The next day, as I was leaving the town,
I noticed that the same SUV was following me.
My motorcycle didn't have rearview mirrors at the time,
so I had to turn to look and I saw them.
I had to swerve to the side, or they would have run me over.
I saw an alley, a street going in, and I went into that
as the SUV went past it.
I started driving but not on the main highway.
I took a road that goes between the fields.
When I had advanced far enough, I saw in the distance that they were coming.
They were coming very fast,
but since I was driving a motocross, I took a dirt road
and went deeper and deeper, until the motorcycle broke down.
It wouldn't start again.
But I had lost the SUV.
If they were to follow me, they'd had to do it on foot.
I hid among the brush, night fell…
and some farmers helped me get out of there.
They took me to the town of Huexca, where I took a bus.
I went to find my dad, who worked in Cuautla,
but I couldn't find him at his job.
So I went to his house and he said, "What's wrong? You look very scared."
And I told him that I was afraid because I was being followed.
He asked me if I needed clothes or anything else.
I asked him to lend me his gun and his car.
"No, I can't do that," he said.
"Do what's right and report it."
I said, "Where? I don't trust any authority here.
But I have an idea. I'll go to Mexico City."
When the news article with my story came out,
MORELOS SOCIAL WORKER APPEARS AND REPORTED DEATH THREATS
…more journalists got involved and said,
"What's happening to you has a shape and a pattern,
and there are people that can help you."
They told me about the Protection Mechanism.
I said, "What Mechanism?"
"It's from the Secretary of the Interior," and I said, "No, no."
I didn't want to hear about anything coming from the government.
They insisted on me taking the help it offers.
I was interviewed by the Mechanism, and finally, they told me,
"We're going to put you up in a hotel
and protect you while we get your family out."
A few days later, my wife started to get phone threats.
Miri, listen, I want you to get him under control,
make him… I don't want to take…
I'll come around by your place.
As a token of my good will.
Otherwise, I don't give a damn. I'll drag you out of that place.
That's all I ask in return. Leave my family out of this.
Let me tell you something else.
I'm the one calling the shots here.
Have Medina call me.
Tell him to bring it down a couple of notches.
Or I won't give a fuck. Do you hear me, Miri?
What do you mean?
You know me. If I say I don't give a fuck, I don't.
The Mechanism extracted my family under a security protocol,
and we left everything behind.
We left the house, our pet,
our family, our work, our friends.
We spent many months that way, taking refuge in a hotel.
Then we were moved to a shelter,
and that's where the whole ordeal of forced displacement began.
Los Angeles is so ugly.
Yes, very ugly. I don't like it.
Evita called me. She said, "Hey, so…
Where are you?" "In California," I replied.
"I was living in the US for two years," she said.
"And how's it going?" she asked.
"Well, I never thought nor planned to come live here."
"It's okay, you'll adapt. It's just a matter of time," she said.
"I felt like that too at the start and then…"
Everyone feels that way, it seems.
Everyone. It's the same feeling, but…
I mean, my life has been reduced to so little,
to cleaning, cooking, growing chilacayota…
But look, that fucking chilacayota is good after all,
because it distracts you and takes your mind off things.
There are things that make me laugh.
And I think about what will happen with all of this.
Yeah.
Hello?
Hello, hello?
Mr. Juan de Dios García Davish, how are you?
What can I help you with, brother?
First of all, let me tell you that you're talking to your friend,
Commander Ramón Roca Pérez, at your service.
Everyone here in Tapachula knows me.
They know me as the Z-24 Commander
from the armed faction of the Zetas Cartel.
- Yes. - I suppose you've heard of us, right?
That's right.
Good. Let me ask you, Mr. García,
what would you like to be for the Zetas Cartel right now?
A friend or an enemy?
Look, brother, I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you,
so I'm going to take this as a threat.
You're free to do as you will. I'll--
- Look here. - Listen to me one second--
Look, Juan de Dios, I'm going to tell you one thing.
We've come to ask for a payout from you,
and in exchange, we'll respect your family's peace and quiet.
If you want to take this call as a simple threat,
I invite you to hang up, find out who you're talking to,
and realize that the Zetas Cartel is knocking at your door in peace.
If you're not interested, with all due respect,
Juan de Dios García Davish,
just hang up and each will do as they must. Believe me.
I'm not interested, brother. Thank you.
Then hang up and my men will break into your house and take your family away.
I think there's nothing more to discuss, compadre.
In a country where organized crime decides the destiny of whole communities,
and decides the destiny of people, because the authorities are incapable
of fighting them and containing them, or even protecting the victims,
today, I talked to Juan de Dios García Davish,
a journalist and director of Quadratín Chiapas,
who told me that after 11 days of making his case known, which we broadcast,
after denouncing the threats against him and his family,
he hasn't received any help from the government.
This is why he's made the sad decision to leave the country.
What do I do?
Die for my ideals,
for my way of doing journalism?
Or stand back and shut up,
and become another person who takes the humiliation and abuse?
I'm not going to stay quiet.
I said, "No, no. I'll go and come back.
I'll go away for six months and then come back."
But as soon as I got here to the United States,
they killed another colleague.
This morning, journalist and reporter for Expreso of Tamaulipas,
Antonio de la Cruz, was murdered.
According to reports, he was with his daughter.
The two were in his car when the sicarios intercepted and shot at them.
His daughter caught a bullet to the head.
So I said,
"That could have been my fate."
Pressure is hard.
It's hard because there's uncertainty.
What will happen to me?
What will happen to my daughter?
What will happen to everything we've worked for?
It was very hard…
when I closed my home down.
I knew I was closing a door
that I might never come back to open again.
It's very sad,
leaving behind everything you love.
Fuck, it's…
painful.
The United States wasn't made for me.
It wasn't made for me.
It was 6 a.m., 6:10,
and my neighbor arrived with his radio on at full volume.
I was already awake, and I heard "blockades."
I got up,
peeked out my bedroom window, and saw the smoke rising.
We journalists found out through the chats of the Department of Public Security
about a large number of blockades around several parts of the city.
I spoke with my boss at Espejo magazine, who told me not to go out.
I said, "I'll at least go to the first blockades to report,
because we have no information and we don't know what's going on."
And he said, "Well, go ahead, but check in with us."
I went outside and saw cars burning, and a blocked bridge,
and it was shocking.
I looked to the north and there were some bigger columns of smoke,
and my reaction was that I had to get closer
to understand what was going on.
Right now, a big shootout is taking place
in the Tres Ríos area in Culiacán, Sinaloa.
At this moment, several units of the Mexican Army
and the municipal police are traveling to this location.
There's an ongoing shooting in the Universitarios Avenue area, and--
There's a shooting, a violent gunfight happening now.
We don't know the number of casualties.
It was around five o'clock in the morning when a shotgun blast
woke up the inhabitants of the Jesús María syndicate in Culiacán, Sinaloa.
The Mexican government has confirmed the death of 29 people,
including ten members of the military,
during Thursday's violent operation in Sinaloa.
The cartel, this criminal organization…
had a sort of symbiosis with our society.
"If you don't mess with me, I won't mess with you."
But that day the pact was broken.
Tell us a bit about it. I saw what you wrote on Twitter,
but please tell us yourself. What happened to you?
Well, yesterday I went out to cover the story.
As I was driving on the highway, where there are some motels and a hotel,
a gang of boys pulled me over,
pointed their guns at my face and told me to get out.
"Get out, because we have to burn your car!"
Those boys took my car and burned it.
I stayed there. There was a hotel nearby.
I asked the employees for shelter, and they kindly said yes.
Minutes later, one of the doors was knocked down.
They burst in violently, pointing their guns at us
and asking for the keys to the cars.
And they took shelter there too.
At one point I sent a tweet, and they turned to me and said,
"You're the reporter. You go around saying it's us and whatnot."
So I played dumb.
They pointed at me with their guns again and said they had permission to kill.
At one point, a woman said to me,
"Young man, forget about your work, your life is worth more."
And she was absolutely right.
So I got up and went to one of the guys who threatened me.
I asked him what would happen if I left.
"I'll leave my stuff here," I said. "Go ahead, go," he said.
And I've been in hiding since then.
It's been a horrible day.
My worst mistake was trying to report about what was happening.
Doing my job was my worst mistake.
It was horrible, Gabi, and I tell you this in confidence.
I'm trying to prepare mentally to try to…
- I'm sorry. - No, don't apologize, man.
If I could be there with you, I'd give you a big hug,
because I think that's what you need at a time like this.
I was the main one at risk of being attacked,
but I was going to leave my children alone,
with just my wife, with their mom.
It's heartbreaking to get to this point where we can't do our job,
because this violence exists, and this violence will remain.
How can this happen?
Because you don't have press to report it.
In many areas, we've seen that there's this collusion,
and it's mainly between politics and drug trafficking, this narco-politics.
It's not just the fact that one organized crime group arrives,
but that all the authorities are at the service of, work for…
…or are part of the same narco-government.
The actual offspring of the drug lords are the municipal presidents,
or the sicarios have taken over as the municipal police.
So, in these regions, there are zones of silence.
Narco-politics is when the line between organized crime and politicians
is blurred and no longer visible.
You don't know who to watch out for anymore.
When corruption has penetrated the organization,
the municipalities, the states,
the journalist who denounces
is an inconvenient journalist.
We journalists have a motivation, we want to change the world,
even if we don't say so.
Even if it's frowned upon because it sounds like a utopia or a dream.
Deep down, we want things to change when we report on corruption,
or on human rights violations, because we don't want it to happen.
And we don't want it to happen around us.
If you live here, cover these issues of drug trafficking and narco-politics…
…and are a law-abiding citizen,
who goes to their job, publishes their work in the newspaper,
drives their car and goes home…
It's so easy. Anyone can take a photo of your license plate, find your address,
and then wait for you in the morning, when you're taking your kid to school.
Miroslava Breach Velducea, a reporter from Chihuahua,
was shot eight times this morning as she was leaving her home
in the Las Granjas neighborhood in Chihuahua.
The governor of Chihuahua, Javier Corral,
assured that Miroslava's journalistic work is among the main lines of investigation.
The journalist was investigating organized crime groups and corruption cases.
I remember the reaction of Javier Valdez,
who was a coworker of Miroslava in La Jornada as a Culiacán correspondent.
He said,
"Miroslava was killed for talking too much.
Let them kill us all, if that's the death sentence for reporting this hell.
Deny silence."
We're not asking for special treatment, just the constitutional guarantees
to continue doing journalism and exercise our freedom of speech,
…without our physical, psychological, and emotional integrity
becoming affected by vengeful violence,
just because what we report is uncomfortable,
or because it's not convenient for the constitutional power
for the truth to be known.
I once asked Javier Valdez,
back in 2010 in Culiacán, if he'd ever been threatened.
He looked at me almost with disappointment,
and said, "Here, they don't even need to tell you."
Knowing that you're reporting in a context of uncontrolled violence
with full impunity means that this threat is constantly weighing on you.
There's a new shake-up in the journalism community.
A great colleague has been murdered,
the writer and journalist, Jesús Javier Valdez Cárdenas.
If Javier Valdez got murdered,
no journalist can feel safe at this moment in Sinaloa.
It's very sad and dramatic to go through a situation like this,
ACTIVIST, JAVIER VALDEZ'S WIDOW
…because Javier didn't die in an accident or from a disease.
Javier was murdered.
This Sunday, the printed weekly Ríodoce signed all its articles as Javier Valdez.
In the first edition after the journalist's bloody murder,
this act is intended to defy those who conspired his death
and a reminder to follow the legacy of murdered journalists.
In Mexico, we've realized that they don't care about anyone.
They didn't care about Regina, Miroslava or Javier. Heavyweights.
To date, Javier's crime hasn't been fully solved.
We know who were the physical aggressors.
We know who the masterminds are, but they haven't been tried.
There's an impunity pact.
They're killing journalists in this country!
- What do we want for Javier Valdez? - Justice!
Nowadays, there's a real war against those who seek the truth in Mexico.
What do we want in Oaxaca, in Chiapas, in Michoacán,
in Guerrero, in Veracruz, in Tamaulipas?
Justice!
We must demand justice, but deep down we all know
that this is the consequence of a system dominated by a criminal mindset.
It's not only the crime committed against the journalist,
but also the elimination of society's right to be informed.
In Mexico, the profession of journalism
has become a high-risk activity.
Mexican society demands freedom
for the practice of journalism!
We're at a moment in Mexico…
…where the current government hasn't made this issue a priority.
I wouldn't like to think that they don't want to do it.
I'd like to think it's because they're overrun. There's a collapse.
The body of journalist Luis Ramírez was found.
Leobardo Vázquez Atzin was murdered…
Journalist Fredy López Arévalo was murdered tonight in Chiapas.
Margarito Martínez was murdered in Tijuana, shot several times…
He was shot to death outside his home…
The most dangerous country…
He, his wife and son…
COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS OFFICES
Hello, Alejandro. This is Jan-Albert Hootsen,
of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Have you heard about our organization?
Oh, okay. We're a New York-based organization
and I'm their representative in Mexico.
We're constantly working on defending the freedom of the press in Mexico,
and we try to help journalists
who've had problems with threats, violence, etc.
So, I wanted you to tell me a bit about
what happened to you this weekend
to see if we could follow up on that.
At the Committee to Protect Journalists we've spent…
two decades documenting that violence,
and we've realized that there's no single imaginable way…
OCCUPATION: CPJ REPRESENTATIVE
…of attacking a journalist that doesn't happen here in Mexico.
It happened before dawn, right?
There are in-person threats, over the phone, or through social media.
Why don't you write the report? What media do you work for?
The doctor sent me a link to the sentence.
There are illegal detentions, kidnapped journalists…
They left after that, right? After the assault.
Torture, physical violence on the streets…
You heard what happened to Gildo, right? So no one saw it either.
He was attacked on Montemorelos, Nuevo León yesterday.
Hold on, I'm dropping everything.
All that you can imagine, from the simplest
to the most brutal, happens in Mexico.
Yes, he told me he was dropping a coworker off at an address yesterday,
and a group of hooded men arrived and beat him up.
It's very hard for a journalist to denounce what happens to them.
He said it was because of an issue he had
with municipal authorities a few months ago.
The local prosecutor won't accept his complaint.
If they receive a threat and make a complaint to the local authorities,
they don't know if the local authorities are involved,
or, many times, they know, and the ones making threats are municipal police,
ministerial or state police officers.
Okay, look, I'll call him and ask him for the report,
and I'll ask him if we can give your number to the Mechanism.
They don't want to be alone.
Because the journalists who are alone at some point
can no longer cope with the stress and fear,
so they develop tools.
But they're still human beings, and when you get threatened,
even if you receive fifty threats a day,
each one of them unsettles you and scares you.
The issue of the forced disappearance of 43 young students and the resulting…
Covering fear and violence forces and drives us towards two things.
IT WAS THE NARCO-STATE
First, a terrible emotional and physical burnout.
We burn out more and more each time.
And you can see it on our bellies, our cheeks, or we start to get too skinny.
Our hair starts falling out, we start having skin issues, we get cancer…
And we never understand we're somatizing those issues,
because we're covering pain.
Because nobody teaches us how to write about pain.
And I think that's what's wrong with every newsroom. Each one.
PROTECT US FROM ALL EVIL
Journalism is one of the worst-paid jobs in Mexico.
That's called precariousness. Living a precarious life.
And this precariousness is related to solitude.
And I didn't really understand that.
Now, with everything that's happened,
I understand that the main problem is the loneliness of journalists.
I don't know how many journalists might be suffering from PTSD.
And they're suffering that alone.
I entered with a visa, but I can't work.
I can't earn money to support myself here.
The whole family is affected by it.
And you, as the family head, have a certain sense of responsibility,
a sense of guilt for putting your family in this situation.
MEXICO CITY
Tell me about the risk evaluation.
- I mean, going back there is-- - Going back there is still dangerous.
The main actors behind the threat are part of a corruption network
to steal natural resources
and buy out political and social leaders
who lead the resistance.
And from there, they can visualize who the enemies are.
Who are the enemies of the corrupt? Journalists.
If it weren't for you and other journalists,
there we wouldn't even know what was happening in Tetela.
I'm the only reporter for miles.
- Would you say it's a silenced zone? - It is.
When a journalist is murdered, other journalists stop talking
about that subject or those actors.
REGIONAL DIRECTOR OF ARTICLE 19
They're imposing what the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
calls "silenced zones."
The system of violence we live in today in Mexico
depends on different types of silence.
It's a system that produces inequality, injustice…
THE WORST CRIME IS SILENCE, WORDS MAKE A DIFFERENCE
…and, in the last 15 years, it causes pain and death on a massive scale.
If we review what has happened in these 22 years,
since the arrival of the so-called democracy in Mexico…
…starting with a presidency of a party other than the PRI,
which built a hegemonic party regime throughout the last century,
in that context, the incoming president…
has a need to guarantee that social and political control.
So, the solution he chooses is to make an alliance
with the Army and the United States
to create an unprecedented security deployment
with the excuse of fighting drug trafficking,
but with the purpose of containing all this social turmoil.
Today, organized crime is the greatest threat
to the security, freedom and well-being of Mexicans.
It's an enemy who knows no boundaries, threatens peace and our institutions.
The case of Mexico has many peculiarities.
One of them is the violence unleashed 15 years ago
by the so-called war against drug trafficking,
which generated dynamics
of increased aggression against journalists.
The same thing was said about my journalist friends who were murdered.
"They were involved in this cartel, working for some group," and so on.
Even the work of journalists itself was a victim
of the criminalization generated by Calderón's war.
There's no classic Latin American dictatorship of the last century
that has produced more horror
than the Mexican democracy of the last 22 years.
Four hundred thousand people murdered,
more than one hundred thousand disappeared in the context of a state policy
wrongly called war against drug trafficking.
I thank the President of the Republic for allowing me
to accompany him on this day to make an announcement of the utmost relevance.
The passing of the Law for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists.
We can't allow those engaged in these essential activities for society
to fall prey to fear or violence.
In terms of prevention, I've instructed the Secretariat of the Interior
to continue strengthening the Protection Mechanism…
PRESIDENT OF MEXICO 2012-2018
…for human rights defenders and journalists.
We're deeply saddened by the loss of life of journalists.
The federal protection system is being improved
and we'll continue to do so.
PRESIDENT OF MEXICO 2018-2024
When the life, freedom, safety or integrity of a journalist is at risk
for publishing information that makes a group of people
or a municipal or state authority uncomfortable, the Mechanism intervenes.
FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE MECHANISM
The federation, through the Protection Mechanism,
is starting to get overrun.
They no longer have the capacity to address
so many cases of aggression that happen daily.
The Protection Mechanism doesn't work.
It has very, very criticizable flaws.
There hasn't been any analysis of the real situation
in the context of the violence that exists across many parts of the country.
You ring the panic button and they don't answer.
Most of the aggressions come from the government and state agents.
And who are they going to call when a dangerous incident happens?
The State, to come and protect me.
There are no proper return protocols for the victims.
The risk zone isn't mapped out on a national scale.
We're doing that
as an organization of displaced journalists.
It's not consistent with what happens in reality.
The Mechanism just blocks. It blocks and blocks.
And what's the most extreme measure? They take you from your home.
And after they take you away, what? Everything's fixed?
No.
I'd like to think that everything is solved with political will,
but I don't believe so.
I also believe that there's a technical incapacity.
At least what we've seen in the Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists,
is the lack of technical capacity of those in charge of risk analysis.
PERIODISTAS DE A PIE EDITORIAL OFFICE MEXICO CITY
Lack of technical capacity, period.
I don't think there's anyone
who can protect us other than us journalists.
In the case of the media owners, they aren't interested.
Journalism has never been their objective,
and their motives are not the same as the journalists'.
As for the organizations
for the protection or defense of journalists,
I believe that their interest is legitimate,
and I think they've done important work,
but I also think
there's little understanding of what motivates journalists.
We're those strange individuals
that, while everyone else runs away from the fire,
we run straight to it to see what's happening.
So, the option of not going because it's dangerous…
is not an option for journalists. We need other protocols.
I have this very utopian dream that at some point this will change,
that violence will stop being what it is
and we'll be able to tell other stories. But…
I still have to continue covering other topics.
- Is it a bone detector? - No.
Is it a radar?
I think it detects metal if there's any.
Hey, by the way. Can you help me out tomorrow?
Can we sit down and continue with the archive?
With the cases you got. It's a record with names, physical features…
But it's a lot, a lot of people, and I'm shocked.
Don't you have their photos?
Not many, no. Many files have photos,
but it's not about recovering the photos, because that's a family matter.
We want to make a contextual analysis with those characteristics.
Tomorrow, I'll show you what we have. I'll tell you about it and you can see it.
Where can we meet?
Where can we meet? Wherever you say.
- You tell me. - Buy us lunch.
Buy us lunch and we're set, Marquitos!
- Yes, it's fine. I'll buy you lunch. - No, I'm kidding.
- Just kidding. - Really, I will.
No, I mean…
But why not?
Hello. How are you, my immigrant friends? I'm Juan de Dios García Davish.
I'm a journalist and a volunteer for the Eagles of the Desert.
Today, I bring you a message. Be extremely careful,
because the temperature drops very low at night and a lot of people are dying.
If someone has any comments or wants to talk with me,
I'm here for you, my brothers. God bless.
God bless!
Yes, yes. Exactly.
We're right in front of the border patrol.
They're at the other side, and there are many people walking…
near the wall, the fences, and the poles.
It seems like some people are greeting their family members.
The view is so beautiful.
It's one of the few things cheering me up right now,
to see this and having it right in front of me.
All right then.
All right, 10-4, bye.
Mary told me that she wanted to go back.
But with how things are over there…
I don't know at what cost that would be.
I don't know what to do. Sometimes I don't know.
Sometimes I think, I'm going to stay. I'll stay here, but…
then I think, what about my mom?
The doctors recently found a malignant tumor.
I have to be with her.
I think it's my duty,
first, as a daughter.
And second, well…
To be honest…
I don't care about what happens,
but I have to be with her.
I… was… in Anenecuilco.
We don't want that pipeline. We don't want that thermoelectric plant.
Or the mines that will destroy the land
and pollute the water.
Since the ministerial investigation wasn't satisfactory,
in fact, it was trash,
I made my own parallel investigation.
I got the testimony of a person who was on the side of the attackers,
who described everything to me,
such as who got paid out.
And I obtained a receipt
for 1.5 million pesos as evidence that my attacker…
had bought off my best friend's conscience.
That same person, along with another who claimed to be my friend,
insisted to me one day before the threat that we go to the mountain,
because there was a crack so that I could take pictures of it.
It seemed very strange to me.
A few months later, they killed Samir Flores.
They killed Romualdo Ixpango, both were close people I worked with.
And they told me, "You barely escaped."
Both of them were rural and social leaders.
They were taken from their homes and found dead.
Today marks one year since the murder of Samir Flores.
And one year after this death,
people in that community keep defending the land and the water.
They're asking for an investigation focusing on his activism
against the Morelos Integral Project.
I'm sure the prosecutor's office of Morelos
should have information about this murder.
It was very unfortunate that this happened because…
it worked for the opportunists,
GOVERNMENT OF MEXICO
…to the ones looking for ways to blame us…
and harm us.
My analysis is that his entire term has that objective.
It's an obsession to be perceived as legitimate.
But during his government, his relationship with the press,
state crimes, and human rights crimes,
has shown the same indifference found in previous administrations.
I've also come here to ask for your support,
help, and justice for our work, because I even fear for my life.
I do this because it's about your senator on leave,
your future candidate
to Baja California's governorship, Mr. Jaime Bonilla.
Yesterday, journalist Lourdes Maldonado was murdered right outside her home.
Lourdes had asked the president for help in 2019.
Today, she's dead.
You took office
with a terrible legacy of violence and impunity against journalists,
and you said that you wouldn't allow
any more murders of journalists and impunity.
You said that there are no human right violations in this government,
and of course there are. The right to justice is a human right.
Our cases remain unsolved, we already know what's in the files,
there's nothing, no progress.
Justice for my father, Mr. President. It's all I ask, and it's legitimate.
I need this as a journalist.
Right now, the Mechanism is taking away my protection.
I'm going to the prosecutor's office to file a complaint.
I want to find my attackers and recover my peace of mind.
The scandals, confrontations,
and finger pointing happen here in the capital,
but we're the ones getting killed, Mr. President.
Are you willing to admit that your administration has failed,
and still fails to establish the conditions
to have freedom of the press?
You said that criminality would be controlled and we'd have results.
However, Mexico is becoming more and more violent
and you're the president
with the worst crime rate since the Revolution.
My question is: When will we see results?
The López Obrador administration has a tense
and aggressive relationship with the media.
Who cares about a journalist's life if the boss says they're scum?
It's as if they draw a target on our chests so they can shoot at us.
We're living in one of the worst times for journalism.
They attack us every day.
It's a biased press that's for hire
and at the service of the corrupt ones.
As a candidate, he was sort of a victim
of an extremely dirty campaign.
So, I think ever since, he has the idea that all the media
who are critical of him are the same.
They're all against us. Everyone who writes there are against us.
You have control over the public opinion, but you're not going to set the agenda.
You're at the service of the oligarchy,
of the ones who pillaged Mexico and now want to come back.
There is, without a doubt, a campaign using…
this unfortunate situation
to attack the government I represent.
They slander, with the motto of the journalists' mafia,
that a lie, when it doesn't stick, at least it stains.
There isn't a single journalist, intellectual, or public servant,
who speaks more with the people than the president of Mexico.
And if someone shows up
claiming to know more than the president of Mexico…
Yeah?
Tell them I'm waiting here.
Zombie!
Look, Zombie.
Look…
who I'm petting.
Oh, you're here.
The government will never tell you to come back or not to come back.
That's a decision that the journalist is going to make.
In fact, they don't even have the real context of the situation in the regions
to guarantee that you can do your work without being killed.
I came back on my own because the state told me,
"We can't protect you any longer. Your protection is over."
Okay, I'll take responsibility. I have to apply all my self-protection measures.
So if my risk threshold says, "It's too high, don't go," I don't go.
Fear keeps us alive. So, if I'm afraid, I don't go. It's my sensor now.
Are you afraid to go? Don't go. Not afraid? Go.
But on the issue of the Mechanism's protection,
they even told me,
"If you want to keep working in your risk zone,
even though we relocated you and you insist on coming back,
we're going to give you a bulletproof vest." Like that.
If that's a protective measure,
I don't think it's very effective.
Everything was weighing heavily on me.
Everything. Leaving it all behind.
From journalism, to leaving my mom.
And for me, it's been one of the worst nightmares I wanted to wake up from.
I couldn't do it anymore.
It was an act of rebellion on my part to say,
"I've had enough of being here."
I'm going back.
Even with fear, I'm going back.
JOURNALISM AWARD MARÍA DE JESÚS PETERS PINO
But at the end of the day,
I don't care what happens to my life anymore.
If at one point, I thought about taking my life,
now if someone takes it, it will be an act of rebellion.
And it will be like…
telling the government that I don't give a damn, and that what happens to me
is their responsibility.
I feel at ease because my daughter isn't here,
and that's what I feared the most.
That they would come after her, or both of us, or Juan.
But having Juan with her, together, I feel more at ease,
because if anything were to happen to me, my daughter won't be left alone.
Many journalists with whom I've spoken to
remain highly motivated, despite the dire circumstances,
because to them this is more than just a simple job.
We're talking about having a cause, a strong sense of conviction,
of getting to the truth behind the enforced disappearances,
migration, or government corruption.
It's very hard to let it go despite precarious working conditions
and the economic hardships they might endure,
despite being in serious risk
of being disappeared or murdered.
I think they have a very profound will to keep working on this,
because the circumstances are so harsh that if this were just a job,
they would have quit already.
Good night, you're listening to Tlatoani Radio.
But it's not just a job. Journalists in Mexico are also trying
to overcome the narratives those in power create about reality,
that what the president, or the governor, or the municipal president is saying
doesn't match with what they see in their day-to-day.
And what they want is for the public to see what they see.
And that's why they keep doing it, despite all the difficulties they have,
but it's increasingly difficult.
How long ago did you leave Venezuela?
How long have you been on this migrant journey?
A year and a half or so.
Where have you felt this contempt and mistreatment the most?
The worst was in Guatemala and here in Mexico.
What's missing is having a real conversation with a government,
a power who's willing
to seriously engage in this dialogue.
And that's why it's important to keep pushing and keep talking about this.
Being able to know and learn about these terrible stories
that our colleagues from other regions have lived instills fear in all of us.
It's hard to find journalists in Mexico who keep working
without constantly fearing something may happen,
because this is a country that has turned into a place
where journalism is a high-risk occupation,
although it shouldn't be.
I recently discussed this with some people in an interview.
And I said, "I'm tired of hearing that there's national,
international, and local journalists."
It may be something for us to think about, but it's also for you readers.
Do you want to know what happened in Culiacán? Search for media from Culiacán.
Do you want to know what happened in Chiapas? Search for media from Chiapas.
It's hard since not everyone knows the names of local news outlets
and how to sort out the good ones.
But…
that's your job.
We can write a thousand things, and you can be outraged by a thousand more,
but if you don't do anything about them, if you don't get up from your seat,
if you don't try to end corruption as a reader,
then you're leaving it all to the journalist once again.
And the dominant discourses will continue, pretense will continue.
Mega-projects crushing indigenous communities will continue.
I was fighting, and continue to fight, for justice for Javier,
because the crime against him shouldn't go unpunished,
just as the crime against any of his colleagues murdered in this country
for doing their work shouldn't go unpunished.
When you kill a journalist, you kill society's right to be informed.
This needs to be stated over and over again.
There are moments when I laugh…
others when I cry.
There are moments when I feel like a fool,
others when it seems like I don't know where I'm heading.
I've come to think that it's not worth doing…
all of this, but you have to keep doing it.
I believe there's so much to be done to try and change,
to change our society's mindset, for it not to be so apathetic,
to make it see and analyze the situation, and demand.
I want to keep going. I want to keep on doing journalism that denounces,
that gives a voice to those who have no voice.
I want to keep signing reports with my name.
I want to keep doing this journalism with passion and affection.
I know there's a lot of fear,
but I still have rebelliousness in my heart.
I chose to be a journalist in Sinaloa,
and I leave my home everyday thinking I want a better life for me and my family,
because I believe that Culiacán, despite its many issues,
can become a better city,
because we can live better together,
and because I deeply believe my children deserve a better world.
And if what I do helps to make a change, I'll keep doing it.
Journalism should be uncomfortable.
Journalism should leave a blister.
Journalism is not there to cheer.
Journalism is not there to praise.
Journalism is there to stir something in people,
otherwise, it's not being done right.
DANGER
In Mexico, from 2000 to early 2024, 163 journalists have been murdered
and 32 of them have gone missing in the practice of their profession.
Ninety-nine percent of these crimes go unpunished.