He paid dearly for it. Journalist Armando Linares was assassinated on Tuesday March 15 in the state of Michoacan, in western Mexico. A month and a half earlier, this head of the regional news blog Monitor Michoacan denounced in a scathing video the murder of one of his colleagues. Mr. Linares is the eighth Mexican journalist killed since the beginning of the year, a record. The carnage raised criticism from Washington and the European Parliament, in turn provoking the ire of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (“AMLO”), accused of fueling the vulnerability of a profession victim of organized crime and elected ripoux.
“Naming corrupt politicians led to the death of one of our colleagues”, had castigated, with tears in his eyes, Mr. Linares, in a message posted on January 31 on social networks, just after the assassination of his collaborator, Roberto Toledo. “We will continue to expose the corruption of officials, he had warned in a trembling voice. We have no weapons, our only defense is a pen and a notepad. » A video revealing the despair of media professionals, who face the flaws in the government mechanism for the protection of journalists.
Telling sign, Mr. Linares had refused to benefit from the measures granted by this institution, which provides “panic buttons”, surveillance cameras, even bodyguards to journalists in danger. Mr. Linares was riddled with bullets on Tuesday at his home in the town of Zitacuaro, bloodied by drug cartels. But in his video, the journalist rather denounced threats from local elected officials. A widespread practice, according to the press defense organization Article 19, which reveals that 40% of the sponsors of attacks on journalists are public officials.
Impunity for crimes
More than 150 media professionals have been murdered since 2000 in Mexico. The scourge has increased since AMLO took office in 2018. The eight murders recorded since January are already close to the death toll (9 killed) for the whole of 2021. To the point that the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, posted, at the end of February on his Twitter account, a message of support “to those who demand more protection for Mexican journalists”.
AMLO’s reply was not long in coming: “Mexico is not a colony of the United States! » hammered the center-left president, denouncing a “interference”. On March 9, the European Parliament approved a resolution deploring that Mexico is “the deadliest country in the world for journalists”. The text denounces the impunity of press crimes, more than 90% of which are never resolved. MEPs also called on AMLO to cease its “populist rhetoric”. According to them, the Mexican President “stigmatises and attacks the critical press (…) under the pretext of combating false information”.
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