The body of journalist Luis Martín Sánchez was found in a rural area of Tepic, the capital of Nayarit, in a plastic bag, handcuffed and with a message stuck in his chest with a knife. He showed signs of torture. The reporter, a correspondent for the newspaper La Jornada, was violently abducted from his home on the night of July 5 and his killing marks a bloody month for the press in Mexico: ten days later, another reporter, Nelson Matus Peña, was shot dead while waiting at a business premises in Acapulco. Sánchez and Matus are the latest victims of an unstoppable wave of violence that has gripped the Mexican press and has claimed the lives of seven communicators so far this year, while 41 journalists have already been murdered for carrying out their profession in the current six-year term. 98% of these crimes go unpunished. “There is no political will to enlighten them,” says Paula Saucedo, officer in charge of the protection and defense program for Article 19, an organization that ensures the safety of reporters.
From Article 19, they warn that Mexico continues to be one of the deadliest countries in the world for the practice of journalism. The North American nation even surpasses countries suffering from armed conflicts or authoritarian regimes. Their statistics show that in Mexico there is an attack on the press every 13 hours, ranging from threats, assaults, theft of equipment, judicial harassment, smear campaigns to violent acts such as kidnappings and murders. In the case of kidnapping, according to Saucedo, there is total impunity.
A photo of Luis Martín Sánchez at the protest rally in front of the Interior Ministry in Mexico City on July 10. Rodrigo Oropeza
Before Luis Martín Sánchez was assassinated, he was kidnapped from his home. His wife, Cecilia López Aguilar, told the local press that the reporter accompanied her to visit relatives in the Acaponeta municipality of Nayarit. After leaving his partner with the family, Sánchez returned to his home in the municipality of El Armadillo. The last time they had contact with the reporter was on the night of July 5, who, according to La Jornada, informed them that he had arrived home safely. That same night, the journalist was violently kidnapped and disappeared. Sánchez’s remains were found a day later and local authorities reported that the main focus of the investigation was “related to journalistic work”. The La Jornada newsroom has been hit hard by violence against reporters. In 2017, her correspondent, Miroslava Breach Velducea, was murdered in Chihuahua, and in May of that year, Javier Valdez Cárdenas, a correspondent in Sinaloa who had done intensive journalistic work against drug violence, was shot dead.
Less than ten days after Sánchez’s assassination, on July 15, some hit men killed journalist Nelson Matus Peña in Acapulco. Matus was in his car at the back of a shop in the Emiliano Zapata neighborhood when he was attacked around 3:30 p.m. The reporter, head of online portal Lo Real, was left in the bloodied vehicle. It wasn’t the first time Matus had been the victim of an attack: Article 19 has documented who was attacked with bullets in 2019but they failed to injure him and the killers fled in a vehicle.
Sánchez and Matus are the latest victims of this bloodshed against reporters. Human Rights Watch has documented seven reporter murders so far this year. The first person killed was independent journalist Abisaí Pérez Romero on February 13 in Hidalgo. The 27-year-old, whose body was found dead on a neighboring street in Tula Municipality, was also a belligerent activist and had denounced environmental crimes in Tula, which the United Nations (UN) Organization ranked in 2006 as the world’s most polluted city. The crime goes unpunished. That same month, photojournalist José Ramiro Araujo was stabbed to death by two teenagers in Ensenada, Baja California. Araujo had a digital magazine called Sol de Ensenada where he published his information.
Mexico 🇲🇽: Journalist Nelson Matus, founder of “Lo Real de Guerrero”, was shot dead in Acapulco on Saturday.
It wasn’t the first attempt in his life; I survived a previous shooting in 2019.
He was the seventh journalist to be killed in Mexico in 2023 and the second in Acapulco. pic.twitter.com/exyWjAbhpF
—Tyler Mattiace (@TMattiaceHRW) July 16, 2023
Cuban photojournalist Héctor Darío Reyes Reyes, 43, was found dead at his home in Mexico City on March 17. Authorities have suggested the death could have been caused by a robbery, as two men broke into the journalist’s home and stole his equipment before murdering him. In May, two murders took place against reporters: Gerardo Torres Rentería, 59, a cameraman at Telemundo and co-founder of TV Azteca Guerrero, was shot at by a group of people in his own home. And on May 23, whistleblower Marco Aurelio Ramírez, 69, suffered multiple gunshot wounds while leaving his home in Puebla by car.
“We are very concerned about the level of violence against journalists in Mexico. Yes, it is one of the deadliest countries to practice this profession,” affirms Paula Saucedo from Article 19. “The press cannot safely carry out its work in Mexico,” she affirms. Saucedo says that Mexican reporters don’t trust the justice system, so most of them don’t report victims of aggression. And the statistics back them up: impunity for reporter murders is 98%. “They don’t file complaints because they think nothing’s going to happen,” explains Saucedo. “Also, there are no real guarantees of protection or non-recurrence,” he adds.
Journalists block a street to protest the July 17 assassination of Nelson Matus Peña in Acapulco, Guerrero. David Guzman (EFE)
Article 19 activists have documented that most violence against whistleblowers is perpetrated by officials, mostly at the local level. Small towns where most people know each other become hell for reporters investigating and denouncing abuses of power. The second group that bothers journalists the most are private individuals, some business people or those who felt offended by published information. And then there is organized crime, which carries out the most serious attacks. “The truth is that organized crime operates in the absence of the state or in collusion with the authorities,” explains Saucedo.
The smear campaign by Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s board of directors is of no help against the brutal violence that is devastating the press. The President systematically uses his daily press conference, colloquially known as La Mañanera, to attack journalists and media critical of his government. “The vast majority of the information media, which is actually manipulative media, is openly against us. It’s a dirty war in every way,” the president said on July 19. López Obrador on Friday announced a new segment in his daily conference, which he calls No lo digo yo, with the aim, he explained, “of making known what is hidden in the conventional media”. According to López Obrador, “there are many things that radio, television and newspapers don’t spread because it doesn’t suit them.” This new space comes after the already famous “Who’s Who in the Lies?” which is said to have functioned as a sort of fact-checking of the information published by the media.
By declaring the press the enemy and unleashing a whole smear campaign against journalists, the president “is violating his obligations as an official because a waiter has to be more tolerant of controls,” says Saucedo. “The fact that the President is stigmatizing the press sends a different message than is needed in a country where journalists are attacked every day.” Monitoring the press is legitimate, but it is not the state that should judge their work. This reminds me of the positions of Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro towards the media. “The very popular head of state increases the risk to the press when he makes such a strong speech,” he adds.
As the President and the media wage open war, journalists fight every day for their safety in a country where violence against them is rife. From 2000 to 2022, 157 journalists were murdered in Mexico under Article 19. Last year was the deadliest, with 17 reporters murdered. For Saucedo, it is a matter of negligence on the part of the authorities, who were unable to organize a response that would allow journalists to practice their profession safely. He points to the lack of coordination between prosecutors, the lack of independence of some prosecutors, the overburdening of these institutions due to the human rights crisis in Mexico, and corruption in public institutions. “There must be independent institutions that have resources and better forensic capabilities. But there is no political will. “The government’s priorities are different, such as providing more budget for the national guard and the military than for the protection of human rights,” criticizes Saucedo.
Journalists and citizens carry photos of murdered journalists during a July 10 protest in Mexico City. Rodrigo Oropeza
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