By Paloma de León
In a recent interview with the International Press Institute (IPI) and Transparency International (TI), Mexican journalist Jorge Carrasco, safety and justice correspondent for news magazine Proceso, spoke about the 2012 killing of her colleague Regina Martínez, the lack of progress in the investigation and the mistrust on the work of the authorities. The effect of impunity in the press in Veracruz, he said, has been pernicious.
"The message of the formal and informal powers is very clear: don't mess with us. Media outlets in Veracruz have folded because of fear or economic reasons," Carrasco said.
As part of the celebrations surrounding this year's International Day to End Impunity, IPI and TI produced a series of interviews to help illustrate the current situation of violence and intimidation that many journalists face.
Carrasco has been investigating the death of Martínez, who was killed on April 28, 2012 under circumstances that remain unclear. Martínez dedicated her career to report on human rights violations and political corruption, which made her relationship with government officials tense.
In the interview, Carrasco criticized federal authorities for having spread the version that Martínez's killing had been a crime of passion, despite the fact that Proceso provided state authorities with a portfolio with two years worth of Martinez's stories so they would consider her journalistic work as a potential motive for the crime. Veracruz governor Javier Duarte had also promised Proceso a professional investigation to solve the case.
“The official version was that it was a crime of passion," Carrasco said. State investigators "identified (José Adrián Hernández Domínguez, who authorities have named as the main suspect in the case), a sex worker, as Regina Martínez's boyfriend. Without proving it, the government of Veracruz implicated our colleague in a double life to sustain that her death was not related to her journalistic work. Despite that argument, the prosecutor's office of Veracruz avoided for almost a year arraigning the main suspect, who is still a fugitive."
And without solid evidence, Carrasco said, authorities found Jorge Antonio Hernández "El Silva" guilty of Martínez's killing. Hernández is a native from Veracruz with HIV and no relatives who was sent to prison in April this year. The sentence was later annulled and Hernández was released in August after it was determined that he was tortured to confess.
Carrasco said that Martínez's killing had a chilling effect on the press in Veracruz. "For Proceso, the killing of Regina Martínez has forced us to reduce our coverage of organized crime, especially in Veracruz," he said.
Veracruz has become the most dangerous state for the press in Mexico, according to the UN's special rapporteur for freedom of expression, Frank La Rue.
The Mexican Association of Newspaper Editors (AME) recently gave governor Duarte an award for his work defending journalists, something that outraged many other journalism groups who have pointed out that 10 colleagues have been killed in Veracruz since Duarte took office.
According to the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH), more than 90 percent of crimes in Mexico remain unsolved.
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.
