Mexico and Central America

In focus

Freedom of expression and information in Mexico is under serious threat. Attacks against the press have increased by 163% over the past six years (2010-2016). The number of the most serious forms of attack (killings, enforced disappearances, torture) have also risen, with 11 journalists killed in 2016, and 11 more in 2017. More than half of attacks against the press in 2017 were thought to have involved public officials, although none have been held accountable. There is a 99.75% impunity rate for crimes against freedom of expression.

Although these attacks in themselves represent an alarming situation for press freedom and freedom of expression in Mexico, they are only a fragment of the systematic state policy designed to curtail the right to freedom of expression and information in the country.

Other violations include the closure of historic archives on grave human rights violations and atrocities; denying or selectively withholding access to information as a means of discrimination and control over marginalised communities; the manipulation of media editorial lines through the discretionary allocation of government advertising; the enactment of bills criminalising the search for information and the right to protest; and government digital surveillance against lawyers and human rights defenders, among others.