25 Feb 11 | Americas, Mexico
Carmen Aristegui, the radio broadcaster who was forced off the air recently, hit the wave lengths again this week after MVS, the Mexican radio station that had kicked her out of her early morning spot agreed to put her back.
Aristegui had been fired following controversial comments that speculated whether President Felipe Calderon was a drunk. Her dismissal unleashed an unprecedented campaign by radio listeners and other supporters who claimed that President Calderon had demanded her head. The debate simmered as it became public that MVS was in the throes of applying for a concession of a WiMax technology, which would allow it to enter the new business of fixed and mobile telephones and TV.
The debate quickly settled on the reputation of the journalist. Ricardo Trotti of the Inter American Press Association, an organisation that monitors abuses against the press and represents newspaper owners, said Aristegui did not spread a rumor, but made an interpretation of an event that occurred in the Mexican Congress, where a congressman brought a banner that read “Would you let a drunk drive your car? No? Then why do you let him lead the country?
But Marco Lara Klhar, another columnist said that while the forced dismissal of Aristegui was not correct, she had violated journalistic ethics by spreading a rumour.
Klhar goes back and reveals that the first time the rumor about President Calderon´s alcoholim goes back to a political ploy by a journalist who was angry after the 2006 presidential elections where the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, PRD, lost by a small number of votes. The PRD challenged the results and has never accepted it lost the elections. Federico Arreola, the reporter, started the rumor, to get back at President Felipe Calderon, he recalled recently.
Now admitting that there is no evidence to prove that the president is a drunkard, Arreola says there is enough to be an “illegal” president because he did not win the 2006 elections.
Aristegui returned to her news program saying that the right to be critical in Mexico had been protected and she thanked her public for supporting her during the crisis. Aristegui is a controversial figure, but a well-respected analyst and broadcaster who often tackles issues other reporters ignore.
16 Feb 11 | Index Index, minipost
Mexican radio station MVS has reinstated Carmen Aristegui, the journalist fired last week after speculating about President Felipe Calderon’s alleged drinking problem. The dismissal provoked widespread debate about freedom of expression in Mexico. MVS’s decision to rehire her was based on discussions with Aristegui – as well as public discussion about her radio show, the station said.
14 Feb 11 | Index Index, minipost
On 9 February, two separate attacks were launched on a TV station and a radio station in Coahuila. Technician Rodolfo Ochoa was killed in the shooting at TV station Canal 9. The station stopped broadcasting temporarily, but programming has now resumed. Radio station Radiorama has not aired since the attack, which damaged their equipment. In a further incident, the distributor of El Norte and Metro newspapers was kidnapped in Tamaulipas. His captors held him at gunpoint and ordered him to stop distributing the newspapers. They freed him after setting light to the copies he had been delivering. There has been an increase in armed attacks on Mexican media organisations since early 2010.
07 Feb 11 | Americas, Mexico
Mexico City has introduced a new law that seeks to protect mental health patients. The law, issued in December 2010, will promote the rights of mental patients. The decision by the local city government came just weeks after Disability Rights International released a scathing report on mental health in Mexico which documented abuses against adult patients and the disappearance of children.
The new report uncovered many of the same problems investigators found in institutions 10 years ago. In this study investigators visited public psychiatric institutions around the country, which serve thousands of people and found practices such as abandonment, lobotomies, poorly trained staff, and other abuses.
The New York Times ran a front page story on this investigation. However, few Mexican journalists took notice of the scandal, proving that mental health is little understood in the country. In a 2004 analysis by the Oxaca Mental Health Association, it was noted that two major newspapers, La Jornada and Reforma, only dedicated a few stories to mental health, and those that they reported dealt only with suicide and marital problems, but little with serious health issues.
Dr Carlos Campillo Serrano, the director of psychiatric care for Mexico’s Health Ministry, told the New York Times that he hoped that the report would help generate momentum to improve conditions. “We are attentive to its recommendations,” he said. The budget for mental health has increased to about 2.2 per cent of all health spending, from 1.5 per cent in 2006. According to one study, 9 per cent of the adult population in Mexico between 18 and 65 years old suffer mental problems.
The new legal framework being discussed by the Mexico City government seeks to establish a better treatment for mental patients in Mexico City. It was enacted with assistance and collaboration of nine civic and human rights organisations, including the Centro Nacional de Comunicacion Social, CENCOS, a leading human rights and press freedom organisation.
According to the law, there will be training for high school students on mental health problems, a move to ensure private health plans cover treatment and a public campaign to try to change certain attitudes towards people affected by mental illness
The new law will also protect the rights of patients who are interned in institutions against their will because of advanced mental health problems.
Along with 94 other nations, Mexico ratified the 2006 agreement it is now accused of violating, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities .
Mexico’s first report on its progress toward abiding by the agreement is due this year.
The World Health Organisation estimates that nearly 95 million people with depression and more than 25 million people with epilepsy, living in developing countries do not receive any treatment or care.
However, as the Oaxaca health study cited above said, little will change in assumptions about mental health if the national Mexican news media does not report on it.
