Good afternoon. Thank you for your attention.
I work for a number of journalists who are present throughout our country and are called “journalists on the ground”. As journalists, we have had to become activists and defenders of our fundamental rights, because we have been hit very hard. There are highly documented cases that show what has happened in our country over the course of the last 10 years in Mexico, my country.
Our country has become a specialist in presenting a different face to the outside world than it shows inside the country. We have tried to document what is happening. We have held investigations and, up to the present, we have also done everything else we could to denounce what has happened. We have done that on multiple occasions. We have stood alone, without the support of the media, and without getting any help from anyone. Quite often, I wonder how it can be that we carry out investigations like the one we did on corruption in the presidential family specifically and also about the Panama Papers—we're talking about serious breaches of basic rights like extrajudicial executions—but often we're treated like the village idiot.
We document things, but nothing happens. No pressure is exercised and no one condemns the behaviour of the Mexican government, not even the Prime Minister of Canada. This is extremely upsetting. It's extremely frustrating to see to what an extent the country is being destroyed. This is a country that formerly was a country full of solidarity and joy, even though there were problems, but today the country is subject to increasing levels of degeneration and destruction. Yet no one is acting.
Since this began when there was a transition of power in the early 2000s, we have seen strange things starting to happen. For example, 110 journalists have been murdered and 24 have disappeared. There are few other democratic countries in the world where journalists disappear like this. It's a democratic country. It's not normal that 97% of murders go unpunished. How many more deaths will it take before we start taking seriously the evidence we've been putting forward for years?
This year in particular has been very difficult because we've seen very high-level journalists murdered. They were very well-known journalists who were carrying out investigations on corruption, especially in the northern part of the country—journalists who had an exemplary record. They have been murdered with complete impunity. It is truly extraordinary. A journalist was murdered when she was taking her son to school. After being threatened with murder, another one was murdered in the middle of the street, in the bright light of day.
We really don't know what to do about this. That is the message I want to bring to you. We are asking for your help. We are asking for help for for our society from parliamentarians. We need help because we need you to take on the role that developed countries need to play in this kind of situation that is ravaging Mexico.
The thing is, there are other interests, such as trade interests, and I understand that you also want to look for Canadians' best interests to be served. Nonetheless, it is not acceptable for these interests to be served at the price of violating fundamental human rights, even though this may affect companies and other interests; businesses often go to the Canadian embassy to defend their economic interests in Mexico.
Another thing I want to say is that we all want you to imagine that there are families and entire communities that are being destroyed by this system, by this situation, and by the doublespeak that is being used by our government. It almost seems like anything goes in the country, and other countries are not condemning what's happening even though the cost is incredibly high in Mexico.
This is not acceptable. I believe that it is not acceptable for us to see this loss of life in order to permit more development in other countries.
Thank you.