31 Mar 2023 | Media Freedom, Mexico, News and features
Mexico is torn between two opposing forces. On one side are the balaclava-clad sicarios and cartels of popular culture. On the other, a government that is becoming ever more obsessed with the appearance of power and glory. The army has been deployed to the streets across the country. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador talks frequently about subverting the constitution to allow his re-election.
For journalists, the imperative to report the truth has never been stronger. There are too many stories to tell – the realities of crime – the institutional corruption that has mired Mexico for some many years – the inefficiency of the flagship ‘Fourth Transformation’ that the current government has staked its reputation on.
Those involved in these stories, however, do not want them to be told. 2022 was one of the deadliest years on record for journalists in Mexico, with 12 murders, and was the most violent with 696 attacks recorded, according to a new report from Article 19. The overwhelming majority of these attacks will go unsolved. Many will never even be investigated.
Forty-two percent of the documented attacks are committed by state actors, the report says.
Nowhere are the problems facing journalists more apparent than in Ecatepec – a sprawling shanty town of squat, concrete dwellings, precariously perched on the mountainsides that surround the capital. Here, the contempt for the press is laid bare. Local journalists are targeted. Foreign journalists are threatened. Here, organised crime and governance go hand in hand.
Cody Copeland, a US journalist working in Mexico, attended a rally in the district, when he discovered that officials from the ruling Morena party in attendance were wearing medallions of Santa Muerte – the patron saint of cartels. The mayor himself was not a career politician, but, according to the newspaper Reforma, a former leader of a band of pirate taxis. Many fear criminal activities are now being carried out in an official capacity.
When questioned about why Ecatepec had seen no running water in five months, Copeland was violently removed from the press conference. Later, he said, a woman from the Morena party attempted to lure him away with promises of an exclusive interview – but residents intervened, suspecting he was likely to be attacked, and drove him away to safety, back in the city.
Copeland believes it is likely that his equipment would have been destroyed if he had been detained.
The greatest dangers are faced by those covering local affairs – where they are likely to be people known in their community. Reporters here are often targeted, and many are unable to leave their homes in fear of reprisals.
Carlos Flores is a local reporter, who lives in Ecatepec. Despite the fact reporting here has always been hard, he feels that under Morena things have only got worse.
“The current government we have is even harder than the previous ones. They are very tight-lipped. With previous governments, you still had some freedom [to report], but with the current one, I feel there are no guarantees for journalism – not in Ecatepec or anywhere else in the republic,” Flores said.
Flores has been attacked three times in recent years – twice, he said, by government forces.
When Flores is at the scene of a crime, police will often tell families not to speak to journalists – obscuring the extent to which the government has failed to handle crime in the area. If he persists, Flores explains, he is likely to be removed by police, and have his equipment destroyed.
President Obrador has frequently dismissed the idea of links between criminal gangs and government, as well as denying claims that large parts of Mexico being controlled by cartels and rubbishing reports that his government spies on activists, journalists and opponents. But the evidence suggests otherwise. Just last week, for example, it was confirmed that his government had monitored the phone of a human rights activist (Obrador said this was lawful, part of a probe into a suspected cartel member).
As for government support for the press, this is available but is largely funnelled into media conglomerates seen as friendly to Morena – La Jornada, Televisa and TV Azteca. These outlets are safe – allowing the appearance of supporting the press without risking serious adverse coverage or investigation.
To make matters worse, Obrador is currently embroiled in a battle to criminalise dissent against the government during election periods. While these reforms appear to have been defeated for now, his attempts to consolidate power are often directed at those who he believes to be naysayers – in particular journalists who are critical of his record.
It is not uncommon for Obrador to use his daily press conference to target individual journalists he believes have wronged him, and to decry outlets that have slighted him as pawns of the opposition, including Index on Censorship. This delegitimisation of the media is accepted by many of his supporters, who gleefully join him in deriding attempts to expose wrongdoing in an administration that appears – despite pleas to the contrary – as corrupt as those that came before.
The presidential elections next year will likely see a new Morena candidate elected to power. The question for Mexico is – will they value freedom of the press?
6 Feb 2023 | FEATURED: Jemimah Steinfield, News and features
Joshua Wong, Benny Tsai, Claudia Mo, Au Nok-hin, Ray Chan, Tat Cheng, Sam Cheung, Andrew Chiu, Owen Chow, Eddie Chu, Andy Chui, Ben Chung, Gary Fan, Frankie Fung, Kalvin Ho, Gwyneth Ho, Kwok Ka-ki, Lam Cheuk-ting, Mike Lam, Nathan Lau, Lawrence Lau, Ventus Lau, Shun Lee, Fergus Leung, Leung Kwok-hung, Kinda Li, Hendrick Lui, Gordon Ng, Ng Kin-wai, Carol Ng, Ricky Or, Michael Pang, Jimmy Sham, Lester Shum, Sze Tak-loy, Roy Tam, Jeremy Tam, Tam Tak-chi, Andrew Wan, Prince Wong, Henry Wong, Helena Wong, Wu Chi-wai, Alvin Yeung, Clarisse Yeung, Winnie Yu, Tiffany Yuen.
These are the names of all 47 people appearing in court today in Hong Kong. Remember their names. They are all people with families, people who had dreams and ambitions that were curtailed as Hong Kong went from being one of Asia’s most liberal cities to a tightly controlled state in just a matter of years. Amongst them are former politicians, democracy leaders, scholars, health care workers, even a disability activist. These people are the best of us and we could be them tomorrow. Rights are fragile – their examples are case in point.
The 47 are accused of “conspiracy to commit subversion” over the holding of unofficial pre-election primaries in July 2020. The primaries aimed to select the strongest candidates among Hong Kong’s then robust pro-democracy movement to run against the CCP-aligned parties. Until then, unofficial primary polls had been a common feature in Hong Kong political landscape, but in the wake of the draconian National Security Law which was passed at the end of June that year, Beijing labelled the democracy camp’s event illegal. In dawn raids on 6 January 2021, the organisers, candidates and campaigners were arrested. Many have been in jail since, denied bail.
The Hong Kong government labels them dangerous criminals and for that they could be behind bars for anything from three years to their whole lives. They are anything but.
The trial is a sham. There is no jury, going against a long tradition in Hong Kong’s legal system, which was established in line with British common law. The judges are handpicked by Beijing. There are reports that some who are taking up the 39 seats reserved for the public in the main courtroom don’t even know who is on trial.
The 47 are walking into court with their guilt presumed. Twenty-nine have already pleaded guilty. With no faith in the legal system, their only hope is a more lenient sentence. Ex-district councillor Ng Kin-wai told the three judges: “I did not succeed in subverting the state power. I plead guilty.” That he kowtowed is understandable; that a minority will not is a sign of how remarkable and resilient these people are. Former legislator Leung Kwok-hung said that there was “no crime to admit” while reiterating his not guilty plea.
This is a show trial masquerading as justice. It is a joke. But to laugh at this brings trouble too. Judge Andrew Chan told members of the public to “respect” the hearing after several jeered at the guilty pleas.
Outside court police presence is heavy. Dissent is being weeded out. Members of the League of Social Democrats, which is one of Hong Kong’s last active pro-democracy groups, turned up to protest and were reportedly pushed away. The chairperson of the group, Chan Po-ying, said “[I] hope reporters are all filming this” as police officers shoved her.
Fortunately reporters are there and are covering it. Hong Kong Free Press, for example, will be running regular on-the-ground updates – follow them here. This is not an easy landscape to operate in. According to reports, some people have warned others against speaking to the press, while journalists have been filmed and photographed by onlookers.
We are on day one of the trial. It is expected to last 90 days, with sentencing to follow after. Alongside Jimmy Lai’s trial – now postponed to the Autumn – it is the biggest and most important trial Hong Kong has seen in years, if not decades. And yet visit a Chinese or Hong Kong-run newspaper and it is buried under other news, if it’s reported at all. They want to forget them. We won’t allow that. Remember their names; better still, say their names out-loud.
We repeat – Joshua Wong, Benny Tsai, Claudia Mo, Au Nok-hin, Ray Chan, Tat Cheng, Sam Cheung, Andrew Chiu, Owen Chow, Eddie Chu, Andy Chui, Ben Chung, Gary Fan, Frankie Fung, Kalvin Ho, Gwyneth Ho, Kwok Ka-ki, Lam Cheuk-ting, Mike Lam, Nathan Lau, Lawrence Lau, Ventus Lau, Shun Lee, Fergus Leung, Leung Kwok-hung, Kinda Li, Hendrick Lui, Gordon Ng, Ng Kin-wai, Carol Ng, Ricky Or, Michael Pang, Jimmy Sham, Lester Shum, Sze Tak-loy, Roy Tam, Jeremy Tam, Tam Tak-chi, Andrew Wan, Prince Wong, Henry Wong, Helena Wong, Wu Chi-wai, Alvin Yeung, Clarisse Yeung, Winnie Yu, Tiffany Yuen.
25 Nov 2022 | Ruth's blog, United Kingdom
One of the core tenets of media freedom is the ability to speak truth to power, to hold decisionmakers and political leaders to account. At Index we see every day what happens in countries where media freedoms are curtailed, where journalists are arrested or threatened for doing their jobs, where there is no such thing as a free press. We were founded to ensure that there would always be a platform to publish the stories of those people who cannot be heard in their own countries – media freedom is therefore one of the core principles which Index defends every day.
In my opinion the way in which journalists are treated is a health-check on the state of a government’s commitment to human rights. On whether they are upholding the democratic values that we all hold so dear. Whether that’s at a local or national level.
In the last decade the importance of news coverage has been made clear every day. In the UK, since 2014, we have had two referendums, three general elections, five Prime Ministers, a pandemic and a recession. We have never needed engaged journalists more – nor politicians to be accessible. Historically this was never an issue, politicians tend to like featuring in the media (and I say that as someone who was elected) and journalists are usually happy to oblige. A mainstay of British political engagement is the traditional morning media round – designed to set the news agenda for the day. Every day Government Ministers speak on the morning TV and radio news programmes – not just to announce new initiatives but to respond to the news of the day. I don’t doubt for a second that this is challenging and at times pretty uncomfortable for the politicians – but it is how we daily ensure that our politicians are accountable to their constituents.
However in recent days the British government has changed tack. The new Prime MInister, the Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP, has decreed that the morning media round will no longer be a daily occurrence. Ministers will not appear on news outlets unless they have something to announce, or if there is something the government wants to discuss. Journalists will struggle to speak truth to power if the power isn’t showing up. This is not the action of a government that is prepared to be held to account on the issues that matter to the people they seek to represent.
Where countries claim a democratic tradition, each has a cultural difference. They have a different feel and a different tradition. It is difficult to judge one against another. Journalists adhere to both their career and cultural norms and for some that may not be a daily interrogation of their government, but in the UK it has been for as long as I can remember. This is a bad decision by the new PM, a decision that I think he will regret and one that will be quietly dropped. We all deserve to know what our government is doing and in the UK – we are dependent on our journalists to find out. This is why we defend journalists both at home and abroad, because media freedom is a core tenet of our democracy.
14 Nov 2022 | Italy, News and features
Tomorrow anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano stands trial for defaming the good name, if that it be, of Italy’s neo-fascist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, after he condemned her remarks calling for ships that sought to rescue refugees in the Mediterranean be sunk and the migrants left to drown. Saviano spoke out on a TV show in 2020 when an NGO rescue ship picked up 111 migrants stranded in the Mediterranean. But a six-month-old baby boy, originally from Guinea, drowned when the dinghy he was in capsized.
A clearly distressed Saviano said: “They’re bastards: Meloni, Salvini… How is it possible, given such despair? They have a legitimate policy which opposes receiving [migrants] – but surely not in the case of an emergency on the open sea?”
The trial has been widely seen as an attack on free speech and, yet again, raises questions about the ability of the far right to use Italy’s bizarre legal code to gag their critics. The case is even more fraught because Meloni was the leader of the ultra-right Brothers of Italy party then but is now also the country’s prime minister. If found guilty, Saviano faces a potential jail sentence. But the writer is no ordinary target. Since 2006 he has been under sentence of death from the Camorra, Naples’ number one crime organisation, after he published Gomorrah, a book that challenged the clan’s silent grip on much of southern Italy.
The title comes from anti-Camorra Catholic priest Giuseppe Diana in 1994, who was murdered for his courage: “The time has come to stop being a Gomorrah.”
Saviano faces calls from Meloni’s camp to cut his police protection. In plain English, by criticising Meloni he may end up being murdered by the very gangsters the writer says are in secret association with the far right. He faces a second trial for criticising Meloni’s coalition partner, Matteo Salvini, in the same TV interview: this case is already grinding its way through the courts.
Saviano told The Observer: “There was a dramatic, tragic shipwreck… A baby was drowned. But from Meloni and Salvini came ferocious and inhuman anti-migrant propaganda. In the light of this, and the libel charge, do you really think mine were such offensive words?”
PEN’s President Burhan Sonmez has written to the prime minister calling on her to drop the trial. He wrote: “Despite calls by Italy’s Constitutional Court to undertake a comprehensive review of criminal defamation laws, journalists and writers are still liable to prison sentences in case of defamation through the press. Criminal defamation lawsuits exhaust their victims. They rob them of their time, of their money, of their vital energy. Crucially, they are punitive and can lead to self-censorship and discourage the investigative journalism that is so necessary in a healthy and functioning democracy.”
Thus far there has been no response from the prime minister’s office to PEN’s letter but Meloni has given no signs of backing down. She said three days ago: “On that boat were migrants, not shipwrecked people. People boarded those ships in international waters … The ship that took them in its charge was equipped to accommodate them and provide for all their reception needs…The banana republic in which citizens are so vexed but which is so popular on the left is over.”
What the prime minister fails to realise is that, along with the case brought by her, Italy’s standing as a civilised democracy is on trial too.
