The case of Miroslava, unpunished: Balbina Flores

Accompanied by María Cortina, director of the Citlaltépetl Shelter House, social worker Balbina Flores, head of Reporters Without Borders (based in Paris), reports that she has been its correspondent in Mexico for 20 years. Brave and loquacious, she speaks quickly, almost without breathing.

–My main job is to document the situation of journalism in Mexico, attacks, murders, disappearances of reporters and editorial writers. Mine has been a journey of years. I started in 2001, here, in Mexico City; I worked for 12 years with the Dominican friars in human rights, and when I left I stayed for a time at the Academy of Human Rights, run by Sergio Aguayo, an academic at the College of Mexico and director of the Research Consortium project, to which I belonged, but I left in 2002. Since then, I have been in charge of monitoring the situation of the press in Mexico, which is not easy at all. More than 150 journalists have been murdered throughout the country, and right now we have 31 journalists missing.

-Women?

–Of these 150 journalists, 15 are women murdered in Mexico; The most recent case is that of María Elena Ferrán, a reporter from Veracruz.

–¿And Miroslava Breach?

–His murder dates back to March 23, 2017. We have just remembered the seventh anniversary of his murder in Chihuahua with a tribute at the Citlatépetl Shelter House, to talk about both his disappearance and his journalism. His murder has not been fully resolved. Now we have a man sentenced to 50 years in prison, he is the material author, but the intellectual is still free, and we know that he is a drug trafficking leader of the Salazar group, in the mountains of Chihuahua. We are certain that he ordered her killed and is still free, like the other material authors of the murder. Although we have a convicted person, we consider that there is still impunity, because others are free, especially the intellectual author and leader of the Salazars.

“Every year we remember that impunity in the Miroslava case continues. As long as the mastermind is not arrested, impunity continues to threaten us all. We prepared two conversations; In one will be the lawyer for Miroslava’s family and in the other will be Blanche Petrich, from The Conference

“We professionals have contributed our quota of blood; 15 of us have been murdered. We know when they disappeared and killed, and to what media they belonged. We did this report last year with Propuesta Cívica, about Miroslava and Javier Valdez. We have a specific chapter on Miroslava: ‘Systemic impunity’, in which we analyze the terrible investigation of her case and why those responsible have not been found. After the ruling, the Attorney General’s Office has not taken any further action. There is only one detainee sentenced and Miroslava’s family asks: ‘Why haven’t they arrested the others, if they were already identified in the trial?’

“There were five brothers, with Miroslava; His parents are no longer alive. There are 4 sisters in Chihuahua and a boy in Mexico City. Miroslava left behind two minor children (they were 11 or 12 years old at the time). In addition to the impact of her murder, many journalists’ families have experienced the loss of their loved one. The most serious thing in our lives is being murdered for carrying out our journalistic work, and that happened to Miroslava, who was ordered to be killed on March 23, 2017 in front of her son at the time she was taking him to school. Miroslava published politicians’ links to drug trafficking. One of them is named Hugo Schultz, he was municipal president in Chínipas, where Miroslava was also from. When Javier Corral came to govern Chihuahua, and Schultz was still municipal president, he called the drug traffickers to tell them that Miroslava had published her links to several mayoral candidates. Schultz was arrested and sentenced to six years, but he is now going free.

“In his texts of The Day, Miroslava published the names of mayors linked to drug trafficking and wrote: ‘Drug trafficking is involved in politics in Chihuahua.’ She made more than three very well-documented reports, in addition to several notes. That’s why they killed her.

“Today, I am an advocate and activist. I am a social worker by profession, but I studied journalism at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco. I chose written journalism because I like to write. I am a reporter, I investigate and organize the information I receive. I have thoroughly investigated Miroslava’s case. Furthermore, as a woman, I am dedicated to reassuring those who are threatened. I accompany the families of murdered and missing journalists to the prosecutor’s offices, to trials, and I help them report if they have been threatened, displaced, and have had to leave their community.

“Now there are more than 60 journalists, most from Guerrero, who live outside their state. Many abandoned their profession out of fear, but others continue doing it, but they no longer live in Guerrero or Veracruz. Their situation is terrible, because there are municipalities in Guerrero, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas, Guanajuato in which their lives are in danger and are called ‘zones of silence’. Even important sources for the journalist refuse to give information for fear of being murdered. In Guanajuato, a fellow lawyer and journalist now fears for his life. Sadly, Mexico has lived, for at least 20 years, in this ‘zone of silence’. In 2022, 11 journalists were killed in our country, the most violent year for us: one per month. In this six-year period, we recorded 37 journalists murdered and six missing. In Felipe Calderón’s case there were 47 journalists murdered. They recently located one in Jalisco, Jaime Barrera, and released him after 48 hours. The armed group never asked for a ransom, but they disappeared for several hours. Like that case, we follow others.”

–You, Balbina Flores, do you feel like you live in danger?

–When working on these investigations, one is always in danger. I was threatened in March 2014 by the Familia Michoacana; That year he accompanied relatives of missing journalists. I went with them to Morelia and three days later they threatened me by phone: We know who he is and he is going to pay us. The male voice on the phone added that he had been paid to hurt me. I publicly denounced it to the prosecutor’s office; I was in the protection mechanism for a year, but it is very uncomfortable and I decided not to be there anymore…

-Because?

–You have to bring escorts at all hours and I only lasted two months.

–I remember that Anabel Hernández was the one who required protection the most.

–As far as I know, Hernández is outside the country, he has lived in Germany and the United States. In my case, I only had escorts for a short time, but it is very uncomfortable to work followed by unknown people and it is even more difficult to practice journalism. That protection invades not only privacy, but any space, and I, as a woman, preferred not to have escorts. In fact, I left Reporters Without Borders for almost two years, because emotionally it is very strong. Feeling like you are being followed gives a feeling of persecution and risk that is impossible to get used to. Now I’m fine, but I always suffered the risks of covering the topic of disappearances and murders, and today I accompany, as is my custom, searching families.

“In the interior of the country the risk is much worse than in Mexico City, because everyone knows you and daily threats come in many ways. Today, I work in Mexico City for Reporters Without Borders, a French international organization. Between 1985 and 1987, The Conference published a supplement coordinated by Father Miguel Concha, who died two years ago. “I supported him in writing human rights texts and I worked in his house, on Odontología Street near the National Autonomous University of Mexico.”