In Mexico City, thousands of protesters are continuing to denounce the murder of photojournalist Rubén Espinosa. Espinosa, who worked for the leading newsmagazine, Proceso, was killed by gunmen alongside human rights activist Nadia Vera and three other women in an apartment in Mexico City on Friday. Both Espinosa and Vera had been working in the southern state of Veracruz, which has seen increasingly deadly violence against journalists and activists. According to human rights groups, Espinosa’s murder signals a new level of violence against Mexican journalists, as he may be the first to be killed while in exile in Mexico City.
Rubén Espinosa is at least the 12th journalist who has worked in Veracruz to be killed since 2011.
Sebastián Aguirre talking:
the case of Rubén, you’ve got to understand it in the general context of violence that happens in Veracruz against the press. Just 14 journalists have been murdered since 2010, and there’s been absolute impunity in all of those cases. So, the founded fear of Rubén was certain that he had a legitimate threat against him, therefore he had to move out of Veracruz. We helped him, when he established in Mexico City, and we tried to encourage him to enter the federal mechanism of protection for human rights defenders and journalists. But there is—you’ve got to understand that there’s also mistrust from the public towards the institutions. In Mexico, there’s a lot of mistrust in the capacity and the way that journalists are going to be protected, so a lot of journalists are not trusting the institutions that could actually protect them. And that was the case of Rubén.
It’s very important to keep that in mind, because, of course, the question of the attack on freedom of expression in the case of the photojournalist, Rubén Espinosa, is very important, but Nadia Vera was a human rights defender in Veracruz. She worked with Yosoy 132, the student organization there, and she also had experienced threats and attacks on her. In fact, just eight months before her assassination, she videotaped a message, as well, that said, “I hold responsible the governor of the state of Veracruz, Javier Duarte, for anything that could happen to me and my family.” She had reason to believe that she was under threat, and now she’s been assassinated, as well.
We also know the name of one other woman, Yesenia Quiroz, and there are two other women whose names either are unknown or have not been released. But this is very important to take into account. The Front for Freedom of Expression is calling for the investigation to include the possibility that we’re looking at crimes of femicide, because there is some indication that the assassinations were accompanied by rape and sexual torture of the women, and to also include the fact that we’re looking at attacks not only on a journalist, but on a woman human rights defender.
it is recognized as one of the most violent places in the country, and this has happened because there have been a series of crimes. The attitude of the governor—there have even been public declarations on his part, warning journalists, in effect. There’s an attitude that “I rule here, and I will not tolerate any kind of criticism or protest.” Rubén Espinoza covered movements and covered his government coming in to repress many of those movements, often in a violent way. This, of course, affected his image, and apparently affected his personal ego, as well. And the main context here that you have is impunity, the absolute dysfunction in the system of justice. Once you send out a message that you can kill, a governor or a government in—which, by all indications, seemed to be involved in many of these killings—they’re the prime suspect—you send out a message that this can be done with impunity, then you’ve created a situation in which everyone—a human rights defender, a journalist, everyone who protests against that government—is in—is under threat.
There have been reports of surveillance. Rubén reported that he was under surveillance. And what’s really scary for many of us here in Mexico City now is that Mexico City was considered a haven. It was considered a refuge for people under threat. And the fact that he apparently, or at least possibly, was hunted down here in Mexico City and murdered in what’s considered a peaceful neighborhood within the nation’s capital, it shatters that, perhaps, myth of security that many of us had here.
So, we don’t know what will happen next. Of course, there’s a demand for a full investigation that takes into account all the possibilities here. There’s a lot of fear that the government will try to sweep this under the rug. There’s already talk that, “Oh, this was a robbery.” Well, there aren’t these kinds of robberies, and there’s too many so-called coincidences in terms of the previous threats. And there’s talk that since he was unemployed, it isn’t related to his work as a journalist. But there will be a constant pressure from civil society to make sure that these political factors are given primary importance in the investigation and that the investigation goes as high up as it needs to go in terms of responsibilities.
I have been reporting on the journalists, on the danger that they face in Veracruz, for the past three years. I traveled there a few years ago, and I met journalists that were just like myself, young journalists covering social movements, some covering drug trafficking, and they were—you know, I realized they were at—their lives were at risk. And so I started reporting on the situation. And then, this year, when Moisés Sánchez was killed, I started working on a documentary for Al Jazeera Plus and had just traveled to Veracruz to work on this documentary.
And then, right as our documentary was about to come out, I saw that Rubén Espinosa was in exile in Mexico City, and he is a friend of many of my friends. In Mexico, it’s so dangerous to be a journalist that we build networks, so we could support each other and be more secure. And so, he was friends of friends, and I reached out to him. And we talked about the documentary, and I said, “Thanks for sharing it.” He said, “No, thanks to you for making it.” And I said, “I don’t think we’ve ever met, right? We just have lots of friends in common.” He said, “No, but I hope we meet. You know, being in this, it’s so difficult, and that this is where we need more solidarity from people.” And we had made plans to hang out, you know, when I got back. And then, a day later, he was assassinated, with four other women.
I mean, this is—it leaves all of us in shock, that it’s not just journalists, it’s not just activists. This is anyone. Every single person I know in Mexico now feels so vulnerable that any dissenting voice can let you be killed.
our demands are very clear. It’s basically, do investigation of all aggressions against journalists all over the country, because it’s not only Veracruz. We can talk about Guerrero. We can talk about Oaxaca. We’ve documented seven murders just this year. And this year was an election year, so just imagine, when we are supposed, as a country, to practice democracy, we’re seeing such high violence against the press. So, our demands are quite clear: a full investigation to all aggressions against journalists. We have a special prosecutor—a prosecution for crimes against freedom of expression, which they have presented no results in the—ever. Not so ever. I wanted to say a day, but they haven’t presented any results of the murders of Moisés Sánchez, of the murders of Regina Martínez in Veracruz, as well. She used to be a colleague with Rubén in the Proceso magazine. So, our demands are quite clear: We want a full investigation. And I think, yeah, there is a responsibility from all parts of the government, the federal, the state and the municipal government, for the systematic impunity of crimes against human rights defenders and crimes against journalists. We can actually talk about a systematic impunity, because in Article 19, we documented 88 cases since 2000, and none of them have ended up in trial.
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Sebastián Aguirre, program officer of the Program for the Protection and Security of Journalists at the human rights organization Article 19.
Laura Carlsen, director of the Mexico City-based Americas Program of the Center for International Policy.
Andalusia Knoll, a freelance journalist who has been reporting on social movements and human rights violations in Mexico for five years. She’s a contributor to Democracy Now! and AJ+.
— source democracynow.org