Claims of an 'Open Government' in Mexico Is Meaningless Without a Free Press Joel Simon - Columbia Journalism Review
go to original November 3, 2015

Activists in Mexico protest the murder of journalist Ruben Espinosa and demand justice, not impunity, in cases of violence against journalists. (EFE)

The statistics are sobering. According to CPJ research, 62 Mexican journalists have been murdered in the last decade, at least 26 of them in direct reprisal for their work. At least 12 more are missing. Justice is rare in Mexico, and 90 percent of journalists’ murders have not been solved.

Although the primary threat to journalists in Mexico comes from drug trafficking organizations, which operate in much of the country, the traffickers rely on networks of corrupt officials, including police and prosecutors, to protect their operations. Because of this complicity, journalists under threat often feel they have nowhere to turn.

The last several Mexican governments have sought to address violence against the press with limited success. In February 2006, then-President Vicente Fox created a special prosecutor’s office, which today investigates attacks on free expression. In 2012, Mexico amended its constitution to make crimes against freedom of expression a federal offense. It also created a government-run “protection mechanism” to provide support, including police protection, to journalists under threat.

None of these measures has reduced the violence. Despite the creation of the office of the special prosecutor, the Mexican criminal justice system has failed to obtain a single conviction for the work-related murder of a journalist. The protection mechanism has had to work hard to overcome the high level of distrust toward the government, although some journalists point to recent improvements.

The experience of journalists in Mexico is a dramatic example of the link between transparency, open government, and press freedom. The open government movement is based on recognition that technology has made it possible to access more government data than ever before. But who is accessing this information, and for what purpose?

Read the whole story at Columbia Journalism Review

Related: Mexico Home to 1 in 3 Journalist Murders in Latin America (teleSUR)

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