The Inter -American Press Society (SIP) expressed on Tuesday his “deep alarm” to what he considers a resurgence of censorship mechanisms in different states of Mexico, through judicial sentences, legislative initiatives and pressures against the media.
The organization, which groups more than 1,300 media, companies and associations of journalists, said in a statement that in recent weeks they have registered in Mexico “several cases that configure a worrying trend” of application of new forms of “judicial and legislative censorship.”
Among the cases collected by the SIP, is that of a journalist from Campeche, to whom a judicial ruling orders not to refer to the governor and submits to his means of communication to a prior review of its contents by a judicial auditor.
It also points to a reform of the State Criminal Code of Puebla that introduces a new assumption of “digital violence”, which allows to punish who makes “publications that affect dignity”, details the bulletin.
The SIP warns that the “ambiguous and broad writing of the norm can be used to persecute journalists, activists or users of social networks that criticize public officials.”
Add the medium case The broken chair from Mexico City, to which the National Electoral Institute (INE), requires that you deliver documents and reveal sources linked to an investigation into irregularities in judicial elections that the country celebrated last June.
“These cases are not isolated, but symptoms of an institutional environment increasingly hostile to journalism,” said José Roberto Dutriz, president of the SIP, cited in the statement.
“We are concerned that in a democratic country with solid constitutional frameworks, judicial, legislative or administrative tools are used to inhibit the criticism and control of power,” he added.
