For every journalist who wins a Pulitzer, hundreds, thousands are killed. The data from the Unesco report on ending impunity for crimes committed against journalists. The case of Mexico and Cynthia Rodriguez.
In the five-year period 2014–2018, the number of journalists killed worldwide rose by 18 per cent compared with the previous five years, and 55 per cent of those murders took place in "countries at peace". The picture becomes even more chilling when one considers that nearly 90 per cent of those responsible for the killings of the 1,109 journalists murdered worldwide between 2006 and 2018 have gone unpunished. This is the finding of a report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), published on 2 November to mark the fifth edition of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.
The report notes that the countries with the highest rate of journalist casualties are the Arab states, followed by Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia, and that the journalists most frequently targeted are those covering political affairs, crime and corruption. "When journalists are targeted, society as a whole pays the price," said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
It is not only investigative journalists whose lives are at risk — so too are reporters, those working in print and online media, and those who try to bring the problems of individual countries to light beyond their national borders. Those who seek the truth. Often it is not only journalists who end up under threat but — in an even more barbaric turn — their families as well.
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Unesco Director-General Audrey Azoulay describes these figures as more than "concerning". This year, 2 November focused on local journalists, through the #KeepTruthAlive campaign. The aim is to challenge the perception that killings happen only far from the public eye, primarily affecting foreign war correspondents.
"It shines a spotlight on local journalists working on corruption and politics in non-conflict situations, who have accounted for 93 per cent of journalist deaths over the past ten years. Unesco intends to hold accountable all those who put journalists at risk, who kill them and who do nothing to stop this violence," Azoulay said in a statement. The end of a journalist's life should never mean the end of the search for truth.
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Mexico is among the most dangerous countries in the world for those working in journalism. During the six-year presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto, from 2012 to 2018, 47 journalists were killed, four went missing and the number of attacks reached 2,500. This is revealed by the latest report from the organisation Artículo19, named after the article of the Mexican Constitution that defines the right to freedom of expression as essential for the Mexican people. "The numbers, while sufficient to cause outrage, do not on their own reflect the terror faced by the press in this country," reads a recent Artículo19 report.
The violence has brought silence to the country. Silencing a journalist and shutting them up is equivalent to stopping them from doing their job — it means switching off the radio and television, leaving the pages of a newspaper or a website blank, and denying everyone their right to knowledge and truth. According to the Artículo19 report, years of fear and violence in Mexico have given rise to entire zones of silence as a result of the penetration of criminal organisations. In some states, such as Tamaulipas in the north-eastern part of Mexico, silence has become a way of life for journalists. Veracruz, meanwhile, remains the most dangerous state in the world for practising journalism: most reporters have had to leave in order to protect their lives.
The Artículo19 report highlights how increasingly necessary it is to make visible the work of killed journalists and their investigations. This is also what Cynthia Rodriguez believes — a Mexican woman who works as a journalist. Speaking with this woman is a punch to the conscience; it is like looking out onto an unknown world, even if one that has been told through news reports and films. In Mexico, her home country, the climate is far from good for journalists, especially for those who do not look away when it comes to drug traffickers. Like Cynthia.
Rodriguez left Mexico for love, but also to change her world — her own world — by recounting and bearing witness, through the voice of her pen, to what happens in Mexico. "The things that are happening today, to journalists but not only, are happening because words like silence, omertà and protection money have come to seem increasingly natural to us. Once those were accepted, violence and corruption became normal too. In Mexico City, but above all in the provinces."
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Also according to the Artículo19 report, years of fear and violence in Mexico have produced entire zones of silence as a result of the penetration of criminal organisations. In some regions of Mexico, such as Tamaulipas, silence has become a way of life for journalists. Veracruz, meanwhile, is currently one of the most dangerous areas in the world for practising journalism: most reporters have left in order to protect their lives. "Since 2000, more than 140 journalists have been killed in Mexico, seven in 2019 alone. These are journalists who tried to expose illegal trafficking and were gagged for it. A gag made first of threats, and those who did not stop in their search for and reporting of the truth were killed."
Rodriguez now lives in Italy, but with her thoughts turned to Mexico — two territories connected not only in her heart but two realities between which a link exists that Rodriguez has described in a book entitled Contacto en Italia. El pacto entre Los Zetas y la 'Ndrangheta. "In Mexico, what is happening to journalists is what happened in Italy with the Mafia: all it takes is for someone to say that a person died because of the narcos, and everyone thinks that he too, somehow, must be guilty." From Italy, she writes about Mexico, asking her new fellow citizens to perceive her country's story as their own. Because what happens in the world belongs to the whole world.
Cynthia Rodriguez is a witness to the dramatic situation facing those who want to report the news in Mexico — those who set out to uncover, analyse, describe and select stories in order to disseminate them and make their community aware. Because a people without information is a people without history and without memory.
