By Diego Cruz
A Mexican journalist accused the government of the state of Chiapas of trying to intimidate her news team through legal actions against a family member.
On Jan. 28, Chiapas Paralelo published an open letter to the state governor, Maluel Velasco Coello, in which they describe the judicial investigation against a family member of journalist Sandra de los Santos.
“We maintain that this legal action against the De los Santos’ family is being used to hinder our journalistic work; something that is neither new nor foreign to Chiapas’ justice department,” the editorial said.
According to the letter, De los Santos' relative was mentioned by the state's prosecutor's office as allegedly being responsible of extorting an unidentified person. De los Santos and her team said the complaint was presented by a third party who didn’t mention who exactly took part in the extortion, and that there wasn't solid evidence to inculpate De los Santos’ family member.
According to an alert published by Article 19 on Jan. 25, Chiapas Paralelo had already been the object of judicial pressures before.
De los Santos doesn’t think the legal action is a personal attack, but rather an attack against her news outlet, she said in an interview with CNNMexico.
“We have six months working with the website. We are four persons and identify ourselves as journalists; there have always been systematic attacks against the people who put together the site,” she said.
Ángeles Mariscal, who is part of Chiapas Paralelo, told CNNMexico that another issue is that the department taking legal action against De los Santos' relative is run by the state attorney, Raciel López Salazar, who had criticized the group in the past.
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.
