On February 8, journalist Anabel Flores Salazar was abducted from her home in Veracruz, Mexico. The next day her body was found, bearing signs of torture, in the neighboring state of Puebla. Her fellow journalists have written an open letter to the Mexican government to condemn her murder and demand action. PEN has translated this letter to help amplify their message and highlight the need for Mexican authorities to take immediate action to protect all journalists and investigate Flores Salazar’s murder and those of the many journalists in Mexico who have been violently killed. The original Spanish version is available here.
An Open Letter to the Government of México from Journalists Concerning the Death of Journalist Anabel Flores Salazar
To the Federal Government
To the State Government of Veracruz
To the State Government of Puebla
To the Chamber of Senators
To the Chamber of Deputies
To the Legislature of Veracruz
To the Legislature of Puebla
The undersigned reporters and communicators from the state of Veracruz and the central region wish to make clear our forceful condemnation of the death of journalist Anabel Flores Salazar, who was abducted from her home on February 8 in Mariano Escobedo, Veracruz and found dead with signs of torture in the state of Puebla, a few kilometers away from where she was kidnapped.
We want to present our unanswered questions to you, our representatives and those whose livelihoods are supported by us, the citizens:
1. How can someone enter a house without the security authorities detecting it?
2. How can someone run around the city with a kidnapped person, with armed and uniformed men that look like the police?
3. How can someone circumvent all the security measures of the Armed Forces?
4. How can someone enter another state while evading the security forces of both states?
5. How could there have been an assassination and abandonment of a body in Puebla without the authorities of Puebla, who claimed they helped with the search, ever finding out?
6. How can organized crime groups co-govern both states, disposing bodies from one side to another?
7. How many more reporters will die in both states while defending freedom of expression?
8. We believe the government of Veracruz is permeated by organized crime. Before this we doubted that Puebla was also contaminated, but now we see that it is.
9. It is right to share responsibility. If every one of you leaders are getting paid to provide for our lives, you are doing it very poorly, and are capable of very little. We don’t understand why you continue to get paid for performing your public functions so poorly. Why don’t you resign?
10. We demand that you end this lack of transparency and really get back to work. Stop ignoring it and stop this massacre against citizens, journalists, children and adolescents and women. We want to be in peace, live in a healthy environment, if that is not too much to ask for.
11. We demand that you stop criminalizing assassinated journalists and stop violating freedom of expression in Veracruz.
Criminalizing our assassinated colleagues is a strategy of true cowardice by those who are obligated to investigate and not fabricate evidence against those who cannot refute the defamations of this horrible government.
We demand that you stop the senseless massacre that this misgovernment has executed against journalism in Veracruz. Stop this nightmare that you are provoking in all of Veracruz.
You don’t want us to write about tragedies? Stop provoking tragedies.
You don’t want to read about violent acts? Then stop creating the conditions where violent acts happen.
The press is a mirror of the real world. We do not make anything up, we only write it down.
H. CÓRDOBA, FEBRUARY 9, 2016
_______________
Reporters from Córdoba, from the central region and from the state of Veracruz.
Hugo Morales Alejo, Director of LaNigua.com
Alejandro Peláez, Revista Visión Reporter
[Eleuterio] Espinoza Benítes, Director of ElInformantedeVeracruz.com
Irvin Marcel Velázques, Director of El Columnista de Veracruz.com
Mussio Cárdenas Arellano, Informe Rojo Columnist
Silvia Núñes Hernández, Director of AgnVeracruz.com.mx
Zaida Salas López, Agencia de Noticias AVC Correspondent
Víctor Martínez, Freelance Reporter
Ramón Flores, Época de Huatusco Reporter
Javier Vargas Salinas, La Encrucijada Columnist
Melina Zurita, Reporter
Abigail Martínez Flores, Freelance Reporter
Lourdes López, Grupo Imagen Reporter
Benjamín Israel Álvarez Mendoza, Notivideo Reporter
Noé Zavaleta, Director de Crónica de Xalapa
Hugo Vázquez Morales, Informe 24 Reporter
Raymundo Pérez Arellano, Reporter
Sandra Segura, Reporter and Columnist
Jorge Galindo Reyes, Grupo Imagen Reporter
Ana Laura Pérez Mendoza, Notiver Reporter
José Vázquez, La Nigua.com Reporter
Francisco De Luna, Primerparrafo.com Reporter
Williams Cortez, Primerparrafo.com Reporter
Hugo Gallardo San Gabriel, Director of Mi Revista Veracruz
Ignacio Carvajal, Plumas Libres Reporter
Octavio Carballo, El mundo de Poza Rica Reporter
Sayda Chiñas Córdoba, Jornada Veracruz Reporter
Miguel Díaz, Co-Director of Plumas Libres
Alberto Carmona Contreras, El Piñero de la Cuenca Reporter
Pedro Tonantzin, Sur Digital/ Morelos Reporter
Miguel García Tinoco, Reporter
Alma Gudiño, El Diario de Coahuila Reporter
Sergio Aldazaba, Órale Jarocho Reporter
Xochitl Nava Cruz, Michoacán, Notivideo
Fernando Pérez Corona, Freelance Reporter from Puebla
Héctor González Antonio, Freelance Reporter from Tamaulipas
David Alexis Nolasco, Imagen del Golfo Reporter
Nava Héctor 36 en el medio informático con uds
Lilia Baizabal Co-Director of Plumas Libres
Melisa Díaz, Reporter
Valentín Olmos Alfonso, Director of atentoveracruz.com
M.Fabián Herrera Ruiz, Imagen y Poder, Acapulco Guerrero
Teresa Morales, Reporter