The organization Article 19 commemorated the 71 Mexican journalists killed during the last 12 years with a website designed to look like an offering for the Day of the Dead, a Mexican tradition to remember the deceased celebrated each year on Nov. 2.
The virtual altar includes papel picado, decorative paper cutouts, with the names of journalists killed, their profession, photographs, "calaveritas" (rhymes that usually describe how someone died) and reflections on the threats against freedom of expression in Mexico.
The website aims to "honor those [that died] with an offering to show them they have not been forgotten and as a permanent demand for justice for each and every one," the organization said on its website. Recently, the International Federation of Journalists reported that 11 reporters were killed in Mexico during 2012, the same number as in Pakistan and Iraq, according to the newspaper Excélsior.
In July, the Special Prosecutor for the Attention to Crimes against Freedom of Expression reported that, of the 67 killed and 14 disappeared journalists since 2006, in only one case were the perpetrators brought to justice.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
