Freedom of Expression
Mexico
Assassinations
1. On February 19, 2001, journalist José Luis Ortega Mata, editor of the weekly Semanario de Ojinaga, received two gunshot wounds to the head and was killed. According to reports, some days previously he had published information about drug trafficking in the region.[1]
Threats and Attacks
2. On November 1, 2001, Fabián Antonio Santiago Hernández, a journalist with El Liberal del Sur in the Veracruz state, was attacked by Luis René Morales Romero, a municipal councilor from Coatzacoalcos. According to the information received, the councilor was carrying a bladed weapon and he attacked the journalist when asked about his involvement in a case of alleged embezzlement.[2]
3. On November 6, 2001, a death threat was made against the journalist and writer Sergio Aguayo. He had published a book titled La Charola [“The Badge”] in which he accused the Mexican intelligence services of involvement in political assassinations.[3]
4. In early November 2001, Francisco Guerrero, the editor of the Morelos state edition of La Jornada, reported that he was being watched by persons unknown and that members of his domestic staff had been accosted on the street and harangued into handing over documents belonging to him. The documents in question referred to the alleged existence of a Morelos state government plan to keep a watch on members of opposition parties and nongovernmental organizations. In addition, reports also claim that around the same time, the manager of La Jornada was attacked, because of an article her paper had published implicating a judicial official in an assassination.[4]
Legislation
5. The Rapporteur’s office has been informed that on December 1, 2001, the Mexican government sent Congress a draft bill for a law on access to public information. The text of the Federal Law of Transparency and Information Access provides that all autonomous government bodies, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and public universities will be subject to its terms. In September 2001, the Ministry of the Interior launched a public consultation process to gather opinions regarding the enactment of a law governing access to information held by the state. To this end, in October 2001 representatives of 75 Mexican academic institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and media corporations set up a technical committee to propose a draft law on access to public information.
6. The Rapporteur notes with pleasure the launch of a debate on the question of access to information within Mexican society. As the Rapporteur has stated before, access to information held by the state is a vital tool in building transparent public administrations. The Rapporteur hopes that the Mexican State continues with its efforts and enacts a law that guarantees the right of information access in accordance with the applicable standards of the inter-American system.