In Mexico, journalists face threats from attackers — and from the system meant to protect them, too

Résumé détaillé

Created in 2012, Mexico’s Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists has struggled to guarantee the safety of those it was designed to protect, operating largely in response to attacks rather than preventing them

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Three years ago, Alberto Amaro was sitting at home when he heard two gunshots. His son, playing in the garden, ran inside in terror. When Amaro reached the front gate, he saw two armed men running down his street.

Amaro, 38, a journalist in the central Mexican state of Tlaxcala, says he immediately reported the shooting to the federal agency responsible for protecting journalists and requested emergency measures. “More than 48 hours passed without a response,” he says. Amaro eventually turned to a court, which ordered security for his family.

His is not an isolated case. What happened to Amaro was one of multiple frightening encounters that exposed shortcomings in Mexico’s federal Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, a program created in 2012 to safeguard people threatened because of their work.

Between 2017 and 2022, eight journalists were killed while enrolled in Mexico’s federal Protection Mechanism, according to a joint investigation by Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Amaro joined the Mechanism in 2019, shortly after founding his outlet. Since then, he has lived through more than 30 violent or menacing encounters, including death threats, detention, gunfire and intimidation linked to his reporting on police, government officials and organized crime.

In 2023, after he reported receiving direct death threats from a mayor, the Mechanism classified Amaro as being at high risk and assigned him bodyguards.

The agency later sought to withdraw his protection despite acknowledging that he remained at high risk. Amaro went to court and a judge ordered authorities to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment.

“I worry about what I publish, whether I’ll be killed when I leave home or make it back that day,” says Amaro, who founded the digital news outlet La Prensa de Tlaxcala in 2019.

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