The journalist and writer Javier Valdez, murdered on May 15, 2017 in Culiacan, Sinaloa, appeared in a video on the platform YouTube demanding the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the governors stop the violence that day by day live the journalists In our country.
Wearing his iconic Panama hat, he addresses the Mexican authorities, asking for the clarification of his murder, almost 3 and a half years ago.
In addition, it requests that the hundreds of murders Y forced disappearences of communicators in the country.
The deepfake, created with the help of software developed in Russia and who helped physically recreate the weekly reporter Rio Doce and correspondent of The Day, lasts 1 minute 39 seconds.
“Here I am, as you see me, talking to you. Today a pandemic affects the world, despite this, we have to continue talking about other ailments that in Mexico have claimed even more lives,” Valdez says in the video.
“I am not afraid, Mr. President, because they cannot kill me twice. That is why I come to speak for the hundreds of journalists who were murdered, disappeared and displaced for conducting ethical investigative journalism, who exposed the bowels of corrupt power and organized crime in Mexico “, the deceased journalist is heard in the video saying.
Through a statement, it was announced that the video was created by the human rights organization Civic Proposal, and for the journalist’s widow, Griselda Triana, in order to make visible the violence experienced by the press in Mexico with the campaign #Let’s keep talking, within the frame of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.
In the same statement, it was reported that Sara mendiola, executive director of Civic Proposal, said that they seek to bridge the gap between journalism and society. “In the social imaginary, society continues to perceive journalists as allies of power, as a corrupt, chayotera press,” said Mendiola.
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According to the organization, López Obrador’s morning conference has contributed to spreading a discourse of discrediting and stigmatizing journalists. For Mendiola, AMLO has failed to differentiate between the owners of the media and investigative journalists.
The initiative reactivated, in 2019, the accounts of Twitter of four journalists murdered in Mexico: José Armando “El choco” Rodríguez, Moisés Sánchez, Miroslava Breach and Javier Valdez. For a week, they shared those jobs for which they were supposedly murdered, as well as threats they received days before their death.
“We think that through this campaign, society can begin to value the press. Journalists are being murdered for investigating and informing us, and as a society we have to be sensitive to that, ”Mendiola said.
According to the organization, more than 15 journalists have been assassinated since López Obrador took over the presidency of our country, including journalists who had protection measures under the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists.
In Mexico, 90% of the murders of journalists remain in impunity, and 100% of the cases of disappearances of journalists, too.
According to the same organization, neither the media, nor the government, nor the State have taken responsibility for guaranteeing job security and decent conditions for journalists. In Mexico, the average salary of a journalist is 8,678 pesos per month, mainly in the Mexican capital, according to data from the job search engine Indeed.
This job insecurity has pushed journalists to seek other sources of income.
“If he was a journalist who, apart from journalism, had another source of employment, they try to unlink the aggression, crime or murder to the other work. This has to be stopped, “Mendiola concludes.
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