Lydia María Cacho Ribeiro is a Mexican journalist, writer, feminist, and human rights activist. Described by Amnesty International as “perhaps Mexico’s most famous investigative journalist and women’s rights advocate”, Cacho’s reporting focuses on sexual abuse and violence against women and children.
Cacho’s 2005 book “The Demons of Eden” (Los Demonios del Edén) exposed a pedophile ring in Cancún, which she alleged was run by businessman Jean Succar Kuri. (Succar was subsequently convicted.) She also mentioned a businessman from Puebla, Kamel Nacif – the “denim king” – who was a close friend and paying for Succar’s defence.
Cacho was detained in Cancún on defamation charges by police from Puebla in December 2005. She was driven 20 hours to Puebla, during which time police taunted her, threatened her with rape and forced a gun into her mouth. At other points on the trip, the police debated drowning her in the ocean somewhere along the Gulf of Mexico coast.
The case became a national scandal after a taped telephone conversation was leaked in which Nacif – who never denied knowing Succar or disproved Cacho’s reporting – is heard scheming with then Puebla governor Mario Marín to persecute Cacho for her exposé. During this phone call, Nacif called Marín several times “Mi Gober Precioso” (my precious governor), a nickname that sticked to the man and remained on the mind of the Mexican people forever.
“We’re survivors of a national tragedy,” said Lydia Cacho on an interview in 2018. “I was tortured, persecuted by the police, illegally detained by governors and people protected by the president, for protecting the fundamental right of children.”
Lydia Cacho received a public apology from the Mexican government on Jan. 10 2019, at the headquarters of the Secretariat of the Interior (Segob) in Mexico City. As part of the measures adopted by the Mexican government following a decision in favor of Cacho issued at the end of July 2018 by the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights of the United Nations (UN).
During an act of public recognition of the human rights violations committed by the Mexican State, Olga Sánchez Cordero, the newly installed head of Segob, offered public apologies to Cacho on behalf of the Mexican state.
File photo: Lydia Cacho Cancun September 2017 (Wikipedia)
But today, Tuesday April 16th, 2019, a federal judge issued an arrest warrant against the former governor of Puebla, Mario Marín Torres (El Gober Precioso), and against the textile businessman, Kamel Nacif Borges (the denim king), for their alleged responsibility in the arrest and torture of journalist Lydia Cacho back in 2005.
The injunction issued 14 years after the arrest of Cacho was resolved by the First Collegiate Court of the Twenty-Seventh District, based in Cancún, Quintana Roo.
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