IAPA rejects López Obrador’s “recurrent” anti-press rhetoric

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) on Friday criticized the “recurrent campaign of stigmatization” of the media and journalists by the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and called for the immediate cessation of this type of “aggression”.

The Miami-based IAPA repudiated López Obrador’s “stigmatization” campaign against the Mexican media and warned that such attacks “tend to degenerate into acts of violence”.

In his daily morning conference on June 30, according to IAPA, López Obrador began the segment “Who’s who in the lies of the week”, dedicated to attacking the media and directly accusing journalists.

The first edition of the presidential address was presented by journalist Ana Elizabeth García Vilchis, the non-profit organization added.

“López Obrador’s new action against the press is nothing new; it reminds us of the dangerous discrediting campaigns of rulers and officials who from the public tribune censor and disparage the independent press,” IAPA president Jorge Canahuati said in a press release.

For his part, the chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Carlos Jornet, warned that in the case of Mexico, “one of the countries with the highest risk for the practice of journalism, the direct discourse of the President with insults against journalists and the media is doubly dangerous.”

This type of aggression, as experience shows, “tends to degenerate into acts of violence,” said Jornet. Canahuati and Jornet said that the disparagement through direct speech or other resources “are indirect censorship measures to distort the public debate.”

Faced with this recurring problem in many countries of the region, IAPA issued a resolution some time ago in which it warned that, “regardless of the ideological bias of the presidents of the region, this is a common practice of presidents Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Nayib Bukele (El Salvador), former U.S. President Donald Trump, Jimmy Morales (Guatemala), Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Mexico), Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua) and Nicolás Maduro, in Venezuela.

The IAPA’s Declaration of Chapultepec, a decalogue of principles on freedom of expression and press freedom, also states that “The media and journalists should not be subject to discrimination or favor based on what they write or say.”