1 of 1 Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a press conference on February 23, 2024 Photo: Ulises Ruiz / AFP Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a press conference on February 23, 2024 Photo: Ulises Ruiz / AFP
The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, justified this Friday (23) for leaking the phone number of a journalist from the New York Times who published a report on alleged links between people close to him and drug traffickers.
López Obrador read the number on Thursday (23) during his usual press conference, while at the same time reading a questionnaire sent to him by the newspaper with questions.
The authority responsible for data protection then opened investigations against the president. Newspaper and press freedom organizations criticized López Obrador.
In response to the criticism, he refrained from apologizing and said that there can be no law prohibiting the disclosure of personal data that is above the principle of freedom. “What happens if this journalist slanders me? It connects me and my family.” [com o crime organizado] without evidence,” López Obrador said. He also said that some of the press served private interests.
The New York Times said Thursday that the leak was a “disturbing and unacceptable tactic at a time when threats against journalists are increasing.”
López Obrador “explicitly said today that the laws of the country do not apply to him, that his violation of them is willful and that he does not care about the consequences for the exercise of fundamental rights,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter). JanAlbert Hootsen, representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in Mexico.
The president “should apologize to the journalist,” Milenio Balbina Flores, spokesman for Repórter Sem Fronteiras (RSF), said on television after describing the incident as “retaliation” on Thursday.
According to The New York Times, a survey of American officials found “information suggesting possible links between cartel operators and employees and advisers who were close to López Obrador” before he became president and was already in power.
However, it claims that “the U.S. never opened a formal investigation into the Mexican ruler and the officials who conducted the investigation ultimately shelved it.”