“In parts of Mexico, the State is the main aggressor of journalists”

2023-04-26 05:42:58

Carmen Arístegui (Mexico City, 1964) listens curiously to the talk about the history of the disappeared Diario Madrid given by her host at the Association of European Journalists. The office, located in the heart of Madrid, seems frozen in time from the 1980s and houses the physical archive of this newspaper that was closed by the Franco dictatorship for being lukewarmly critical of the regime in 1971.

Its headquarters was later blown up, becoming a symbol of the lack of freedom of the press in this period in Spain. Now, the Diario Madrid Foundation – chaired by Miguel Ángel Aguilar – awards an annual prize that the renowned Mexican journalist Arístegui will receive today from the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida.

Mexico is often listed as one of the most dangerous places for journalists. What is the difference between working as a journalist there and in Europe?Just to give you a fact. Last year, in 2022, according to the organization Article 19, there were 12 murders and more than 100 in recent years. I would only ask you what the murder of a single journalist would mean in Spain. You can realize the significance of the enormous difficulty of fully exercising a job as essential for a democracy as journalism.

Can you practice quality journalism with that level of violence?In environments of this nature, in complex environments for free expression and for freedom of investigation, spaces of high creativity, collaborative work, formulas that allow expressing, investigating and making known what our societies need to know are also developed.

With that level of risk, what drives you to continue working as a journalist?Well, a bit between foolishness and the conviction that our work, journalistic, is necessary for our society, it is a fundamental tool so that democracy or attempts at democracy can advance.

Carmen Arístegui is awarded for her “extensive and indisputable career, both in the exercise of the profession and in her permanent defense of civil liberties in Mexico.”

jose gonzalez

You have constantly denounced the corruption of the State in Mexico, what role have the administrations played in the violence against the press?When we talk about extreme cases such as murders or persecutions or threats against journalists in different parts of the country, impunity is what rules. The non-action of the State is very clear and, on many occasions, it is not only the omission, but the action of authorities that go against journalists. In some regions of the country it is clear that the main source of aggression against journalists comes from the sphere of authority itself.

Has the arrival of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in 2018 brought about any changes in the relationship of the State with the press?The president is permanently in a presentation of several hours during the morning, but what has distinguished these press conferences, sadly, has not been strictly the rendering of accounts, but to encourage anger, to deepen the division, to generate a confrontational climate . He himself is a quarrelsome figure who permanently seeks confrontation and, in this sense, he is similar to other presidential figures that we have seen in recent times in other countries who have decided that the press is the enemy, a matter to be denigrated, to to demonize, to stigmatize…

“López Obrador is a quarrelsome figure who permanently seeks confrontation”

In his speeches, AMLO insistently demands that Spain apologize for the conquest. Is this a generalized vision in Mexico?It is not something that has mobilized masses, certainly not. But AMLO is the type of character that generates this type of circumstance. There are certain situations that are created with a specific purpose of polemicizing, of distracting attention from a certain type of debate, and it is true that the president knows that for an important part of Mexican society this is obviously a traumatic chapter and it is something that is always worth it. worth discussing, historically speaking, and even between the countries involved in modern time.

The Mexican Carmen Arístegui is the author of the books “Marcial Maciel: History of a criminal” and “Transición”.

jose gonzalez

The violence of drug cartels is one of the issues with which Mexico is always related. Has the situation changed in recent times?We are at a time when the main Mexican cartels, the Sinaloa cartel, the Jalisco cartel, a new generation in particular, are literally multinationals. The Mexican State has not been able to dismantle this criminal business circuit that has brought about extreme violence. Mexico is a country that has recognized more than 100,000 missing persons. That can give you the dimension of the criminal phenomenon that has existed in recent years and that sadly persists.

Has the border with the United States been a burden in this sense?Where is the origin of the problem in this market, which is the largest in the world for consumers, or in one of the countries that produces or distributes what they need? Well, everyone gets where they want. on the other hand, from there to here also another business, another gigantic business that is that of arms. Mexico has a huge amount of weapons with which there is a great chaos of deaths and that greater amount of weapons comes from there, it comes from the United States and there is also a business there that they prefer not to put in their balance. There is too much money circulating and there is too much talk that does not resolve reality, because at the end of the day there is business convenience.

“The Mexican State has not managed to dismantle the criminal business circuit of the cartels that have brought extreme violence hand in hand”

Is Mexico then doomed to be a near-failed state?I do not accept the word condemned, I refuse to accept it. I believe that like any country, we have the right and obligation to do what is necessary for this to be reversed and for us to have a country that works in terms of democracy, justice, and equity, because that is an aspiration that any country must uphold.

What role do Mexican journalists play in this change?A very important role. I believe very much in journalism, I believe very much in the value of what we do, because our task allows us to shed light on issues where people can understand reality. What we do is that, bring information, findings, revelations to people, encourage public debate and underline the importance of criticism of government actions and other powers. I believe a lot in that. I think that a democracy, that a society cannot live without journalism.