THE Mexican government announced Monday that it is taking steps to protect the life of a television journalist as well as the network he works for, following threats made in a video uploaded to social media sites depicting a man with a masked face, framed by masked men, heavily armed thugs , presented as the leader of one of the most powerful drug cartels in the country.
“The government will take the necessary steps to protect journalists and the media from receiving threats,” Jesus Ramirez, a spokesman for Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said on Twitter.
“Democratic freedoms must be guaranteed, as must the right to information,” he added.
In the video, the man, who claims to be Ruben Osegera, the leader of the Jalisco cartel’s New Generation cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful organized crime gangs, threatens Milenio television network and personally Asusena Uresti, a journalist and presenter.
The perpetrator demands, among other things, that the coverage of his gang clash with rivals in the state of Michoacάνn be “fair”.
The journalist has not expressed herself.
However, organizations defending the freedom of the press condemned the threats and demanded that the authorities protect Ms. Uresti.
“This repeated practice of threatening – publicly – the media and journalists, without any shame and without any fear, is very serious, it means that these gangs feel stronger in the face of the passivity of the state,” warned Balbina Flores, the representative in Mexico of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a non-governmental organization.
He called on the government to ensure the safety of journalists who are targeted by organized crime gangs, stressing that correspondents in areas where cartel clashes are taking place are more vulnerable.
For his part, journalist Hector de Maulleon, who has published research and books on drug trafficking, said on Twitter that the threat against Ms. Uresti was “very worrying” and “it can not go that way.”
Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for media workers. More than a hundred journalists have been killed there since 2000, according to figures from the Mexican Human Rights Commission.
This year alone, three journalists have lost their lives. The latest assassination, that of Ricardo Lopez, who had complained that he was receiving threats in the state of Sonora (north), was committed on July 22nd.
In 2020, eight journalists were killed, according to RSF.
More than 90% of the murders of journalists in Mexico go unpunished, according to organizations defending freedom of the press.
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