In a letter to Minister of the Interior Diodoro Carrasco, RSF “contested the arguments presented by the National Immigration Institute (Instituto Nacional de Migraciones, INM) to justify their denial of a visa for Helen Roux, a journalist with the Austrian magazine âSuedwindâ”. RSF “considers the Mexican authorities’ refusal to grant her a visa to be […]
In a letter to Minister of the Interior Diodoro Carrasco, RSF “contested the arguments presented by the National Immigration Institute (Instituto Nacional de Migraciones, INM) to justify their denial of a visa for Helen Roux, a journalist with the Austrian magazine âSuedwindâ”. RSF “considers the Mexican authorities’ refusal to grant her a visa to be an attack on press freedom”. In its letter, RSF asked the minister of the interior to “consider this matter, and in light of the information contained in this letter, to make a decision which conforms to the constitution and Mexico’s international commitments.”
On 13 March 2000, RSF received a letter from Porfirio Thierry Muñoz Ledo, the head of business affairs for the Mexican Embassy in Paris, in response to a 10 February letter which the organisation sent to the minister of the interior stating that it “[was concerned by] the Mexican authorities’ refusal of a visa for Helen Roux”. In his response, Muñoz Ledo explained the reasons given by the INM to justify their denial of a Type FM3 visa, which is obligatory for journalists.
The INM maintains that during her previous trips to Mexico, the journalist violated Articles 43 and 60 of the general population law by taking part in “activities that were not authorised” under the visa which had been granted to her. RSF is surprised by these accusations because the authorities never informed Roux of any infractions during her two previous visits to Mexico. The journalist also finds incredulous the INM’s accusations that she had already left the country before the alleged illegal activities were discovered by the authorities.
During her two visits to Mexico between February and April 1998, Roux participated in the International Civil Commission for Human Rights Observation (Comision Civil Internacional de Observacion de los Derechos Humanos, CCIODH) which visited the state of Chiapas, at the same time as she was covering the activities of the commission for a French magazine. These two activities conformed to her visa, which stipulated that the journalist was authorised to “fulfil the work of the CCIODH as well as further her journalistic investigations into the human rights situation in the state of Chiapas”.
Between 1994 and 1999, at least twelve journalists have been expelled or detained in the country, in contradiction of the Mexican constitution and the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, ratified by Mexico, which guarantees “the freedom to seek information (…) without taking borders into consideration”.
