(PEN Canada/IFEX) – The following is a 9 November 2004 PEN Canada press release: PEN Canada writes to Mexican President and Canadian Prime Minister expressing concerns over press freedom in Mexico Toronto, November 9 – The worsening situation for journalists in Mexico has prompted PEN Canada to issue letters to political leaders in Mexico and […]
(PEN Canada/IFEX) – The following is a 9 November 2004 PEN Canada press release:
PEN Canada writes to Mexican President and Canadian Prime Minister expressing concerns over press freedom in Mexico
Toronto, November 9 – The worsening situation for journalists in Mexico has prompted PEN Canada to issue letters to political leaders in Mexico and in Canada to seek press freedom guarantees.
At a time when three Mexican journalists have been murdered in 2004 alone, PEN Canada has expressed its serious concern to Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin over recent death threats against La Crisis editor-in-chief Carlos Ramírez, his family and his colleagues.
Ramírez reported receiving three anonymous e-mails on October 27 and 28, 2004 in which he, his family and his colleagues were threatened with death if the Mexico City-based La Crisis was not closed down.
In the letter to Fox, PEN Canada President Haroon Siddiqui calls on Fox “to take steps to ensure that those threats are thoroughly investigated and that those responsible be brought to justice.” It also asks him to implement security measures for Ramírez, his family and his colleagues.
Similarly, the PEN communiqué asks Martin to urge Mexican authorities to investigate the threats and to apprehend those behind them. The letter also reminds the Prime Minister of the close bilateral ties between Mexico and Canada strengthened through the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Organization of American States and to “impress upon the Mexican government the need to solve the murders of Mexican journalists in a timely and professional manner.”
Of the murders this year of journalists Roberto Mora, Francisco J. Ortiz Franco and Francisco Arratia Saldierna, progress has been made only with regards to the murder of Ortiz Franco, in which seven suspects were arrested in June. To date, no one has been sent to trial in connection with any of the murders.
The unpunished murder of journalists in Mexico is a long-standing problem. At least eleven journalists have been killed there since 1994. To that end, in the coming months PEN Canada will collaborate with other PEN centres to continue to campaign on behalf of freedom of expression in the country and to call for an end to the climate of impunity that surrounds the majority of the killings of journalists in Mexico.
About PEN Canada
PEN Canada is a centre of International PEN that campaigns on behalf of writers around the world persecuted for the expression of their thoughts. In Canada, it supports the right to free expression as enshrined in Section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
