Everyone has a role in press freedom, insists Narcos star Diego Luna

Mexican actor, producer and director Diego Luna took a break from the big screen on Thursday to highlight the dangers faced by journalists in his country and beyond, condemning murders of reporters everywhere as “a scandal”.

Speaking to journalists at the UN Office at Geneva ahead of a screening of his new documentary State Of Silence, Mr. Luna insisted that the issue of their safety was everyone’s responsibility.

“I think it’s time for us to come out, us citizens, to come out and protect journalism around the world and protect these voices that are crucial for us to experience freedom, to experience democracy and to live in a healthy world,” he said.

“There is no access to truth if there is no free journalism.”

According to UNESCO, the UN Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organization that is mandated with keeping track of and promoting journalists’ safety worldwide, in 2022 and 2023, a journalist was killed every four days.

Efforts to encourage governments to do more to protect journalists are also spearheaded by the UN human rights office, OHCHR, which leads the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.

Journalists under attack

A staggering eight in 10 murders of journalists are not investigated around the world, said OHCHR Human Rights Officer Renaud de Villaine, who highlighted a “persistence” of the killing of journalists today.

“It happens in in conflict situations, like in the Middle East, but also in Ukraine,” he said.

But it can also happen in countries not at war such as Mexico, where journalists investigating corruption, drugs, cartels and gangs like those who feature in the documentary “are specifically targeted”.

Since 2017, there have been 69 recorded murders and 32 documented cases of disappearances of journalists in Mexico, Mr. de Villaine noted, before insisting that the issue belied deeper systemic issues which OHCHR was working hard with the authorities to resolve.

“Journalists are not the only ones targeted…the problem is beyond journalism,” he maintained, noting the recent gruesome murder of city mayor Alejandro Arcos in Guerrero state.

Echoing those concerns, Santiago Maza, Director of State Of Silence, explained simply that “violence pays off” against journalists.

The theme runs through the documentary which tells the stories of courageous investigative reporters from Mexico who have endured violence and threats on their lives which have forced them into hiding, in the pursuit of their work into subjects including illegal logging and the exploitation of vulnerable communities whose rivers have been diverted.

Read more: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/11/1157026