The bodies of three photographers from the city of Veracruz — Gabriel Huge, Gabriel Luna Varela, Guillermo Rodriguez— were found dismembered and dumped in local waterway as Mexicans celebrated World Press Freedom Day yesterday. The bodies showed signs of torture.
The Attorney General’s Office for the State of Veracruz reported that both Huge and Varela, who were freelance photographers, had been reported missing by their families yesterday. According to Laura Angelina Borbolla Moreno, Special Attorney General for crimes against freedom of expression, both Huge and Varela were among a list of eight journalists who had been identified as under threat from organised crime in Veracruz.
Just last weekend, neighbours discovered the body of Regina Martinez, a reporter for the political weekly magazine Proceso, in the Veracruz city of Xalapa. Martinez had been killed with heavy blows and strangulation. Days after her murder, the Mexican Congress passed a law protecting human rights workers and journalists.
An ongoing battle between the Zetas drug cartel and members of the Chapo Guzman Sinaloa Cartel has contributed to a spiral of violence and corruption: with the last three murders, eight reporters have been killed in the southern state of Veracruz since December 2010.
Another journalist was killed this weekend in the southern Mexican state of Veracruz. The body of Regina Martinez, a reporter for the political weekly magazine Proceso was found in the bathroom of her home in the city of Xalapa with signs of heavy blows and strangulation.
Martinez is the fifth journalist in Veracruz to be slain in the past 18 months, an ongoing battle between the Zetas drug cartel and members of the Chapo Guzman Sinaloa Cartel has contributed to a spiral of violence and corruption. Other journalists killed in the last year include Noel Lopez Olguin de Noticias de Acayucan, Miguel Angel Lopez, Misael Lopez Solana and Yolanda Ordaz of the newspaper Notiver. No one has been convicted or arrested in these cases.
Martinez was a Procesco reporter for more than a decade and she frequently wrote about drug trafficking.
The last story she filed for the magazine was about the arrest of nine police officers in the municipality of Tres Valle for alleged ties to organised crime. Martinez is the first Proceso reporter to be killed since the magazine was founded 36 years ago. People took to social networking sites to express their outrage over the murder and demand answers.
The latest murder will undoubtedly trigger a chilling effect, which will mean even less reporting on drug related violence. In parts of Mexico where organised crime has pushed journalists into silence, reporters and citizens have used social media networks to keep the public informed about violence and corruption.
This won’t happen in Veracruz, the state sent Twitter users Gilberto Martínez Vera and María de Jesús Bravo Pagola to prison on terrorism charges after they tweeted warnings about local drug gang violence. In a recent interview, the now released Martinez Vera described how his 21 days in prison last August destroyed his life. The mathematics professor now only tweets about religion out of fear of facing trouble once more. Both Martínez Vera and Bravo Pagola faced 30 years in prison if convicted on terrorism charges, they were released after an international outcry.
In Mexico, a video showing child actors acting as corrupt politicians, drug traffickers and police on the take has gone viral. Uploaded on You Tube on 9 April, the film clip had reached more than 1 million viewers by the weekend of 15 April. But on 16 April, the video was removed from the video sharing site
Produced by a business group, the film had been criticised by politicians, who claimed it violated the human rights of minors. Yes, there was something unsettling in seeing an 8- or 12-year-old child waving a gun or pickpocketing another child dressed as a businessman. But the film hit a sore spot, as it allowed adults to see how far certain problems have grown in Mexico. The video was well-produced and it was simple in its message. It showed the problem and then asked politicians to solve it.
It is hard not to imagine that politicians were a bit jealous: released in the middle of a national electoral period, the movie gained almost 200,000 followers per day the week it was up on You Tube. The sad part is that this is only the first movie that captured the attention of the Mexican voter. While Mexico is an advanced democracy, albeit today engulfed in drug trafficking related violence, its political campaigns go back to another century. The four presidential candidates and the myriad candidates for Congress are presented in wooden poses and clichéd manners in television, billboards and even on social media.
Only one politician, Miguel Mancera — said to be the top contender for the mayoral race in Mexico City — publicly applauded the video. One columnist claimed that the video is a trap because it was superficial in its demands, and it did not address issues that keep Mexican society unequal.
Because of the success of the first video, the producers created a second video where the child actors, dressed for their roles, are interviewed on camera about problems in Mexico and give their point of view as to what type of city they would like in the future. One of the child actors, Jose Stallin Maya Gonzalez, who plays a corrupt judicial policeman who steals from robbers in the first video, says: “Well, in the Mexico of the Future, the police would take care of us.”
The last year has seen tumultuous shifts for media freedom. But core problems still remain in the world’s troublespots, says Padraig Reidy