Prominent writers blast Mexican president over journalist slayings

The letter was posted on the website for the U.S. chapter of PEN worldwide, an organization that promotes literature and freedom of expression.

Chomsky, an internationally renowned author, linguist and political commentator, signed the letter alongside Booker prize victor Salman Rushdie, author and director Paul Auster, author Margaret Atwood, poet and activist Homero Aridjis, and nearly 500 others.

The country was shaken two weeks ago by the brutal murder in Mexico City of five people including photojournalist Ruben Espinosa, who had fled to the capital after receiving threats in Veracruz.

Journalist Guillermo Osorno hand-delivered the letter to President Peña Nieto’s workplace at Los Pinos presidential palace on Monday morning after which hosted a press convention.

It also demanded a “thorough investigation of state and municipal officials who, in each case, may have been involved” along with an undertaking to review “the procedures established to protect reporters’ lives”.

The letter says that since Javier Duarte became Veracruz’s governor in 2010, “journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed in unprecedented numbers: 14 have been murdered in atrocious fashion, and three have disappeared in the same time period”. Ninety percent of journalist killings in Mexico go unresolved, according to CPJ research, a dismal record that merely aggravates the crisis and leaves journalists wide open to attacks. “There would now seem to be no safe haven for the profession”. But, in fact, the investigation led by Mexico City’s Attorney General’s Office has been harshly criticized by local journalists and advocates precisely for not seriously considering the repeated threats against Espinosa as a possible motive.

Veracruz is today the most risky city in Mexico to be a journalist, while the country is the second most unsafe place in the world to practice the profession.

Statistics regarding impunity in crimes against the press are disastrous, the letter said, and cited that 89 percent of murders remain unsolved, according to the Human Rights Commission.

“Reporters in Veracruz who receive threats are often convinced that they come directly from the local government”.