TO MARK world press freedom day this month PEN, the international writers’ organisation, focused on Mexico. Around the globe, the day is used to remind governments of the importance of a free press and to highlight the risks of imprisonment and death faced by many journalists while attempting to practise their profession.
This year more than 50 prominent writers – including Paul Auster, Lydia Cacho, Noam Chomsky, Ariel Dorfman and Derek Walcott – have signed PEN’s Declaration in Defence of the Freedom to Write in the Americas. PEN has brought together authors from right across the Americas in its 2009 campaign to end violence against journalists in Latin America.
The declaration condemns the persistent attacks against freedom of expression in Mexico where, in the past five years alone, PEN has recorded the deaths of 20 journalists and the disappearance of four more. PEN has called for appeals to be sent to President Felipe Calderón, using a postcard that is available to download from its website.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was intended to protect the right of all to freedom of expression and opinion; to allow people to speak and to write freely and to seek and receive information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.
PEN’s declaration includes damning evidence that in the Americas, particularly in Mexico, those who “criticise the authorities, or expose the activities of criminal gangs, are frequently targeted, harassed, threatened, kidnapped and murdered for what they publish. Often those responsible for these crimes escape justice, official investigations stall or lapse into silence, and the crimes remain unpunished.”
What is so worrying is that, despite it being widely accepted that non-state actors are responsible for many of these violent attacks against journalists – particularly drug traffickers, paramilitaries and other criminal groups, and even agents of the state operating outside of the legitimate authority of their offices – these atrocities continue with apparent impunity. In Mexico, fear is now preventing many journalists from covering major stories.
Freedom of expression is a cornerstone of any democracy. Writers, journalists and academics are often, quite literally, in the front line, while attempting to practice their profession or to safeguard this right. When they are threatened or murdered and those responsible escape prosecution and justice, the climate of fear that prevails undermines an entire society’s right to free speech and to access information.
In recent years, the Mexican government has taken various steps meant to combat these problems and to encourage a free press. None of them have proved decisively successful. In early 2006, the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes against Journalists was created but to date there have been very few successful prosecutions. Campaign groups have attributed this failure to a lack of autonomy and resources as well as to jurisdictional limitations.
In March 2007, the federal penal code was amended in order to decriminalise defamation. This was widely welcomed – but has not yet had much impact as state laws are yet to be amended.
In October 2008, a proposal to reform article 73 of the constitution, to recognise crimes relating to freedom of expression and human rights as federal rather than state offences, was presented to congress and, recently, the Mexican chamber of deputies approved an incomplete reform that attempts to confront the prevailing impunity for crimes against journalists in the country.
It is paramount that effective laws are imposed to prevent and prosecute violations of freedom of expression in Mexico. PEN’s declaration serves to bring to the foreground the urgent need to combat impunity in Mexico.
Lucy Popescu
For further information visit: www.internationalpen.org.uk
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