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In his humble home in Medellin de Bravo, Veracruz, Jorge Sanchez rumbles through boxes and pulls out 17 years of editions of La Union, a community newspaper his father Moises founded. The headlines are as local as you can get, flooded streets with too many potholes and too few sidewalks, lack of garbage removal, and reports on an increasing wave of violence in this town on the outskirts of the metropolitan Port of Veracruz.
Rising from the dirt floors of Jorge’s home are massive walls with thick concertina wire and security cameras. One year ago an armed commando rolled up to kidnap his father right in front of his family and young grandchildren. Jorge sought out help with local police who didn’t even feign to search for the kidnapped journalist and failed to preserve the crime scene. When family and colleagues started protesting, the government was forced to respond and actually look for Moises Sanchez. Twenty-three days later, his body was found in a clandestine grave, decapitated and beyond recognition. He became the 11th journalist to be assassinated in the state of Veracruz since 2010, when the current Governor Javier Duarte began his term.
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A year on, killers of #Veracruz journalist Moisés Sánchez remain free https://t.co/cek3Upnzrs #Mexico #impunidad #periodismo
— Michael Deibert (@michaelcdeibert)
January 4, 2016
A year later, three more Veracruzan journalists have been murdered along with three others in other regions of Mexico. The majority of Moises’ kidnappers, murderers and intellectual authors roam free. Adding insult to injury, the government has declared that he wasn’t targeted for being a journalist since he primarily made a living as a taxi driver. A week before Moises was kidnapped he had been threatened by the local mayor who it is believed had ordered the hit on him, as Moises was often critical of his governing. The mayor was released from prison after he got a legal stay to prevent his incarceration. Two local police officers are awaiting charges of omission for not responding to the family’s calls for aid and one officer for confessing to the crime.
Now, Jorge continues publishing La Union with the support of local journalists and colleagues of his father. Jorge recognizes the risks associated with his activism and his family lives under the constant threat of violence.
Moises Sanchez was kidnapped and killed by people employed by the government or directly connected to it. The case has barely been investigated and the family now has to rely on the protection of bodyguards working for the same government. Jorge’s father’s murderers not only roam free but also live and work close to him. The Sanchez family home has been converted into a prison with policemen stationed in front who supposedly patrol it. However, if a bodyguard goes with Jorge to work, Jorge’s widow is left unprotected and if the guard patrols the house, vice versa. The family has to pay for all costs generated by the surveillance cameras and special security measures and Jorge has complained that often the bodyguard’s cars don’t work or don’t have enough gas.
“What impunity does in these kinds of situations is allow government officials to feel that they have the power to assassinate anyone who criticizes them,” said Jorge. Impunity is not what happens after journalists are killed, it is what continues to pull the trigger.
Regina Martinez, a journalist who worked for the critical weekly magazine El Proceso in Xalapa, Veracruz, was found murdered in her home in 2012 and the government refused to recognize that she was targeted for her critical reporting, instead calling her assassination a “crime of passion.” Nearly four years later none of her murderers are behind bars.
The Committee to Protect Journalists publishes an impunity index in which they document which countries have more unprosecuted murders of journalists. Mexico clocks in at 8th place since 19 journalists were murdered with complete impunity over the last decade. According to a study conducted by Reporters without Borders, Mexico was the most dangerous country for journalists in Latin America in 2015.
Beautiful altar in honour of Mexico's murdered journalists by @polink #mxuk2015 #wahacadotd pic.twitter.com/7CfHck7nYn
— susana seijas (@susanaseijas1)
November 7, 2015
On the books the Mexican government appears to be taking action to improve situation. In 2010 the government created a state protection mechanism for at-risk journalists and a Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE). Journalists who feel they are at risk are given panic buttons that they can sound off when they are supposedly threatened, although journalists have denounced that they don’t work.
FEADLE is the prosecutor’s office that determined that Moises Sanchez could not have been murdered related to his work as a journalist since his primary income source was being a taxi driver. When government agencies do anything within their power to discredit journalists how can media workers be expected to confide in them?
Recently a group of students from Columbia University analyzed press coverage of journalists’ safety in five different regions across the globe. While the study doesn’t include Mexico, the same problems in coverage that the study identified are equally prevalent here. “The national media often failed in tracking the police investigation and the judicial proceedings after killings and episodes of intimidation, which contributes to tendencies of impunity and journalists’ vulnerability,” writes Carolina Morais, one of the study’s authors. Basically, the study lets us reflect on the fact that we as journalists can be complicit in the assassinations of our colleagues and the grave situation of the freedom of the press depending on how we cover these crimes.
Last summer the brutal murder of photojournalist Ruben Espinosa, activist Nadia Vera and Yesenia Quiroz Alfaro, Mile Virginia Martín y Alejandra Negrete in an apartment in La Narvarte, a middle class neighborhood sent a chill down the spine of all who work in the communication field, those who fight for social justice, and anyone who associates with either of these types of people. While this crime made international headlines since Mexico City had previously been considered a safe place for journalists fleeing violence, it has mostly falling off the media’s radar nationally and internationally.
Just as is the case with Moises Sanchez, the Mexican government has tried to discredit the fact that the murder might have been motivated by Espinosa’s journalistic work, which was often very critical of the government in Veracruz where he resided and worked. He had taken refuge in Mexico City less than two months before his murder after he said he saw suspicious men following him around in the Xalapa, the capital of this southern Mexican state.
There are currently three men behind bars, including an ex-police officer, awaiting trial for their involvement in the multi-homicide that also involved sexual torture and rape. However, each man gave conflicting accounts of whether they knew each other beforehand and whether they knew the victims. It is believed that they may have been tortured into giving their testimonies. The Attorney General’s office has not pursued a line of investigation focusing on Espinosa’s journalism as a possible motive for his murder and the four women found in the apartment with him. They have instead focused on the lives of the women attempting to stick the blame for the murder on them for possible organized crime or drug connections.
National media outlets have been exceptional at publishing the government version as the absolute truth, while sensational newspapers like La Razon has run frontpage covers stating “Homicide Victims Knew Their Murders” or “Domestic Worker of Narvarte, Previously Received Death Threats.” Numerous media outlets published graphic photos of the crime scene where some of the victims are seen naked and bound. It is believed the photos were leaked by the investigative police and passed to the press, a practice all to common in Mexican crime reporting. The online portal 24 horas gave a full breakdown of how the supposed victims knew their assassins, where they allegedly had sexual relations before, and other details that are impossible to prove even though they are written as fact in this media outlet. These kinds of reports are all in line with the problems outlined in the Colombia University study. But so is our own silence when we only report on these murders right when they happen.
Moises Sanchez’s murderers roam free and his family is forced to live under the constant threat that what happened to their father could happen to them. Meanwhile, over six months have passed since the chilling murders in the Narvarte and there is still little known about this case.
Journalists must continue to report on these cases focusing on the lack of true investigations and sentencing or impunity will continue to prevail and more colleagues will end up murdered or disappeared.
Andalusia Knoll is a freelance multimedia journalist based in Mexico City. She produced the documentary Journalists are Under Attack in Mexico: Death in Veracruz for AJ+ You can follow her on twitter @andalalucha.
