Breathe
By Sandra Romandía
Immersed in a country of victims, in which the shadow of torture by the Mexican State persists in the hands of its armed forces agents, it is inconceivable to think that those who have suffered this brutality become, once again, the target of the very entity that should ensure their safety. As difficult as it may be to read, this is how it is.
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Friedrich Naumann Foundation's annual event on Human Rights Defenders in Berlin, Germany. Friedrich Naumann Foundation's annual event on Human Rights Defenders in Berlin, Germany, where I was invited to talk about the Mexico case and my experience as a journalist focused on uncovering the stories of victims to which I was invited to talk about the Mexico case and my experience as a journalist focused on uncovering stories of victims, stories that otherwise might never have been known. I shared the event with speakers such as Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Filipina journalist Maria Ressa Philippine journalist Maria RessaRussian journalist Ilia Krasilshchik and Afghan activist Wazhma Tokhi.
Several of us agreed on the concern of living in a country where there are no guarantees for journalistic work, where the government tries to distort reality and discredit the information of the serious media, and the importance of continuing to fight from our trenches to denounce cases of human rights violations.
There I explained that on that very day, that Thursday, December 8, I decided to publish, together with my colleagues Miguel Ángel Tepozteco and Áxel Chávez, the story Sedena infiltrated a military officer as a fake journalist to spy on a torture victiman investigation in which we worked for six months to prove how a girl named Londy Paola Farfán (who went by the name of Mía) pretended to be a reporter for several media that did not exist in order to be close to Óscar Kabata, a young man who was tortured by General Felipe Jesús Espitia 14 years ago.
The infiltration went beyond journalistic simulation. Mía Rodríguez, in reality Londy Paola, manipulated her identity to obtain confidential information from the victims. From the Chamber of Deputies to the delivery of clothes in demonstrations, the fake reporter collected sensitive data under the pretext of documenting for a supposed documentary; she insistently sought him to know his protest itinerary; she accompanied him in the sit-ins and even became his supposed friend. One day she simply disappeared and blocked him from her phones and social networks. The rest of the story, of how we verified what she did and how she reported her spying, can be read in the report published in this link. But what I can tell you here is that it was a road of surprise after surprise, none of them pleasant.
I want to emphasize that in view of the threats I received from third parties and from the high commanders of the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) not to continue investigating the case, I decided to wait until I was in Europe for the publication of the case; although my colleagues have followed the protocols of care, from the beginning of the investigation I was located and warned of the danger of publishing the case.
It is incredible that in a country that claims to be democratic these practices continue, both espionage and threats, and that we reporters who document cases of human rights violations live under harassment. It is incredible to see how sitting with colleagues from Afghanistan, the Philippines, Russia and other countries I realize that what is happening in Mexico, a nation that supposedly had advanced in terms of rule of law and justice, is in the speeches about repression and lack of guarantees to practice our profession.
"Politicians and decision makers must ask themselves whether existing national and international measures are sufficient to protect the integrity of journalists. How should we cooperate to protect journalists and guarantee the right to freedom of opinion?" asked German liberal Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger. Because yes, next year will be decisive not only in Mexico but in many parts of the world and I quote Nobel Peace Prize winner, Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, "2024 will be critical... one out of every three people in the world will vote; it will be a turning point to determine whether democracy will survive".
The published case of espionage, and the coincidence of concerns among colleagues from different countries, covers us with a mantle of persistent uncertainty about how many more lives are being manipulated by those who should be safeguarding them, and how many more threats to those of us who practice journalism will continue to be related to a work that seeks to serve and contribute to a better country.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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