AMLO's attacks on the press are political irresponsibility: Article 19 on Loret de Mola

Mexico.- Despite the violence against the press in the country, which adds up to six journalists killed so far this year, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador described several communicators as "mercenaries" this Friday and exhibited the salary of driver Carlos Loret of Mola.

"The attacks against the press are an enormous political irresponsibility, when it has the obligation to call for peace and find solutions by opening up criticism so that the attacks against journalists cease," the director for Mexico and Central America of the NGO Article 19, Leopoldo Maldonado.

Just yesterday, Thursday, reporter Heber López was shot dead inside his recording studio in the southern state of Oaxaca, becoming the sixth journalist to be killed so far this year, according to a count by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

And although López Obrador assured this Friday, during his morning press conference that there will be no impunity for López's crime, in his speech he again attacked the press.

The president criticized by name Enrique Krauze, Héctor Aguilar Camín and Carlos Loret de Mola, who in his Latinus medium revealed that a son of the president, José Ramón López Beltrán, lived in 2019 in a house in Houston, Texas, of a government official. the company Baker Hughes, a contractor for Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex).

Even López Obrador showed that, allegedly, Loret de Mola receives more than 35 million pesos a year (more than 1.7 million dollars) while the president only earns 2 million pesos (almost 97,500 dollars).

"The mafia of power hid for a long time the salaries of these famous journalists, who are not like you, they are hit-and-run journalists that the big communication companies have," said the president.

After the president's accusations, Loret de Mola assured on Twitter that what López Obrador said is false: “The president is cornered. He doesn't know how to get rid of the scandal of his son's house. And today he slanders me again and on top of that he puts me at risk by revealing inflated and false amounts of supposed income. It is very serious. It's a crime. This would-be dictator is out of his mind."

Maldonado considered that Mexico “is experiencing lethal violence against the press, of unprecedented proportions, and what we would expect from the Mexican government is a public condemnation. But there is not, there is no will to have a contingency plan”.

He recalled that López Obrador's confrontation with the press has been constant, and even, on June 30, 2021, a section was opened in his morning conference where attacks on the press have intensified.

"Bending", "corrupt" "unfair" "yellow" "conservative" are just some of the expressions that the president has launched into the press during his administration.

His statements have been condemned by organizations such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, the Inter-American Press Association or the Committee to Protect Journalists, which have even accused an abuse of power by the president by slandering and insulting, from his position, the press.

With information from Forbes Mexico

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