The Mexican government “created a state platform to exhibit, stigmatize and attack the critical press, under the pretext of combating fake news.”
(EUROPE/ABC) – The European Parliament will most likely approve on Thursday a resolution agreed by all political groups in which it pours extremely serious criticism against Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whom it expressly accuses of using “populist language” to “denigrate and intimidate independent journalists.” The approval of this resolution coincides with the Spanish government’s attempts to restore some normality to relations with Mexico after López Obrador spoke of putting them “on hold.”
The resolution states in its original text according to the version to which ABC has had access that “President López Obrador has frequently used populist rhetoric in daily press conferences to denigrate and intimidate independent journalists, media owners and activists” and denounces that “the rhetoric of abuse and stigmatization generates an atmosphere of incessant unease towards independent journalists” in Mexico, where there has been an extraordinary succession of murders of reporters.
Among the many criticisms in the European Parliament’s text, it also states that the López Obrador government “created a state platform to exhibit, stigmatize and attack the critical press, under the pretext of combating fake news” and although it also recognizes that it has tried to put in place a mechanism to protect journalists it has “serious deficiencies in terms of its funding and number of personnel, lack of adequate accompaniment, lack of coordination with state governments and delays in the implementation of protection measures that often cost lives.”
It is rare that a resolution of this type openly mentions the name of a president, except when the MEPs want to make an express statement that cannot be avoided with diplomatic formulas. Nevertheless, the criticism of the Mexican leader when drafting this resolution has been approved by practically all the groups, including the United Left and the Socialist group, and the Popular and Liberal groups.
In this case, it speaks openly of “institutionalized and widespread corruption, accompanied by a deficient judicial system” that “generates an endemic problem of impunity, since around 95% of the murders of journalists go unpunished”. At the same time, “the Mexican government has not adequately carried out the necessary reforms to reduce violence and impunity, including crimes against journalists and human rights defenders.” On the contrary “there are strong indications that the Mexican State has made use of phone hacking tools intended to counter-terrorism and cartels, including Pegasus spyware, against journalists and human rights defenders.”
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