(@ChiapasParalelo)
Organizations as well as nearly 30 female journalists and photojournalists have energetically condemned the criminal acts committed against Carina García Sosa, correspondent of MVS Radio; Jazmín Gómez Ortega, president of the Oaxaca Press Group (GPO), and Saraí Jiménez, journalist for ADN Sureste, who were assaulted and robbed of their work implements in the months of July and August. They have called on Governor Gabino Cué and Secretary for Public Security Alberto Esteva Salinas to provide the necessary guarantees for communicators to continue developing their work in the state. These journalists have been following the teachers’ movement, documenting the series of mobilizations carried out by Section 22 as well as the destruction of the offices of Section 59 of the SNTE, or the National Educational Workers’ Union.
The communicators and organizations stressed in their communique that “the insecurity which we experience in the state of Oaxaca has placed female journalists in a state of defenselessness, such that we are not only denied the conditions for the exercise of our work, but neither does there exist a mechanism to ensure that these acts do not repeat themselves.” They added that “we cannot leave aside the context faced by Oaxacan journalists in their work. The report ‘Impunity. Violence against female journalists. Legal analysis’ which was put together by Communication and Information for Women (CIMAC) shows that Oaxaca, just like Chiapas and Puebla, shares the fourth-highest national level of attacks on female protests. This means that the violence is worse than that registered in very conflictive areas controlled by drug-traffickers, such as in Tamaulipas.”
On 19 August, the day on which was registered 2 of the attacks just mentioned against women journalists, the graphical journalist Vico Miravete was subjected to assault and robbery by police as he was covering a social protest outside the Del Carmen neighborhood in Tuxtepec city. The previous day, a member of the municipal police decided to photograph and intimidate a reporter from Noticias as he was investigating the case of someone who had been detained by the police patrol.
For more information (in Spanish):
Inseguridad vulnera a mujeres periodistas de Oaxaca (Noticias.net, 21 de agosto de 2014)
Repudian agresiones a comunicadoras en Oaxaca (Proceso, 20 de agosto de 2014)
Boletín de las organizaciones sobre los hechos (20 de agosto de 2014)
A mujeres reporteras 75% de medidas cautelares en Oaxaca (Noticias.net.mx, 16 de agosto de 2014)
Oaxaca, cuarto lugar por agresiones a mujeres periodistas (Noticias.net.mx, 15 de agosto de 2014)
For more information from SIPAZ (in English):
Oaxaca: new journalist’s murder (30 August 2014)
Oaxaca: the Mexican state with the highest number of attacks on women human rights defenders and journalists (10 June 2014)
Oaxaca: One of the most violent and dangerous states for the exercise of journalism (16 May 2014)
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