The law provides for freedom of speech and press, and the government generally respected these rights. In practice, however, attacks on journalists, threats of attacks, and a lack of adequate protection resulted in significant self-censorship. Most newspapers, television, and radio stations were privately owned, and the government had minimal presence in the ownership of news media. Media monopolies, especially on a local level, constrained freedom of expression.

Freedom of Speech: On October 24, the state of Puebla brought charges against two journalists for “abusing freedom of expression”; the state threatened 17 others with charges that were never brought. Prosecutors eventually dropped charges in both cases. An additional case in Tijuana reflected a similar pattern of intimidation.

Freedom of Press: Despite federal laws supporting freedom of the press, many journalists were the victims of threats, harassment, and violence. Reporters covering organized crime, including its links to corrupt public officials, acknowledged practicing self-censorship, recognizing the danger investigative journalism posed to them and their families. Freedom House’s 2012 Freedom of the Press Report categorized Mexico as a country “not free” for the press due to the threats and violence that reporters faced and impunity for the perpetrators of crimes committed against the press.

The law does not provide a legal framework for issuing permits to nongovernmental and noncommercial community radio stations.

Violence and Harassment: During the year the NGO Article 19 reported seven journalists were killed for reasons presumed to be related to their work and two disappeared, compared with nine such killings and two disappearances in 2011. Article 19 also registered 207 aggressions against journalists, media workers, and media installations during the year. Moreover, in the state of Veracruz alone, Article 19 reported that 10 journalists fled the state for their safety during the year.

The PGR’s Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Journalists reported that it initiated 113 pretrial investigations from January to November, and accepted jurisdiction in about 20 cases with eight completed prosecutions.

Between April and June, attackers killed six journalists and news-media workers in the state of Veracruz, including Regina Martinez, a journalist who had been beaten and strangled to death. Martinez had worked for Proceso magazine for the past 10 years and had recently published reports that included accusations of local government corruption. On October 30, the Veracruz State Prosecutor’s Office announced that it had arrested Jose Antonio Hernandez, who had confessed to beating Martinez to death in an attempted robbery, and that a second suspect remained at large. When presented before the judge, Hernandez said that he was tortured into confessing to the crime.

On May 21, freelance journalist Zane Plemmons disappeared while covering TCO activity. According to his mother, who reported him missing on May 25, Plemmons was staying at a Nuevo Laredo hotel, where he was last seen by the hotel’s desk clerk, who stated that she saw Plemmons outside of the hotel talking with individuals, possibly military personnel, based on their dress and vehicle. The clerk said that later the same night two armed and masked men emptied Plemmon’s hotel room. State police alleged that the individuals who appeared to be military were actually TCO members. On June 28, the CNDH and the Nuevo Laredo state prosecutor began an investigation, which was ongoing at year’s end.

There were multiple attacks on media outlets during the year. On May 11, gunmen opened fire and detonated grenades at the headquarters of El Manana in Nuevo Laredo. Following the attack El Manana published an editorial saying it would stop covering the disputes between drug cartels in the country for as long as necessary. In July three separate offices of El Norte were attacked in Monterrey. Two buildings were attacked with grenades and AK-47 gunfire, and the third was set on fire by arsonists. The initial attacks came just days after the newspaper had exposed corruption in the state’s Vehicle Control Institute.

Perpetrators of violence against journalists continued to act with impunity with no developments reported in the investigation, arrest, or prosecution of suspects in multiple cases of violence against journalists since 2006.

On June 22, President Calderon signed amendments to Article 73 of the constitution, which allows federal authorities to assert jurisdiction over crimes against journalists, as well as the Law for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which establishes a federal mechanism to provide protection measures. On November 30, the government published the regulations for the federal protection mechanism for journalists and human rights defenders, and the protection mechanism was operating by year’s end. Although the constitutional reform federalizing crimes against journalists also took effect, secondary legislation to strengthen the federal government’s ability to assert jurisdiction over such crimes had not passed at year’s end.

Libel Laws/National Security: Twelve states have criminal libel laws making journalists vulnerable to imprisonment at the state level.

Nongovernmental Impact: TCOs allegedly exercised a grave and increasing influence over media outlets and reporters, frequently threatening individuals who published critical views of crime groups.

Local authorities made no arrests in the September and November 2011 cases of three Nuevo Laredo-based bloggers tortured and killed in alleged retaliation for posting comments on the Internet about local drug cartels.

Actions to Expand Press Freedom

On January 12, the federal government decriminalized defamation, libel, and slander when it repealed articles 1 and 31 of the law of crimes of the press. During the year the states of Campeche and Mexico repealed their criminal libel laws.

On November 13, after a long debate, the Senate passed a final version of a labor reform law by 99 votes to 28, and former President Calderon signed the law on November 29. The reform, which took effect on December 1, represented the first update to Mexico’s labor law in 40 years. Federal law provides workers the right to form and join unions, the right to strike in both the public and private sector, and the right to bargain collectively. However, the law places several restrictions on these rights. The law does not prohibit antiunion discrimination nor does it require reinstatement of workers fired for union activity.

Although the law requires a minimum of only 20 workers to form an independent union, it requires official recognition from the government to register the union formally and establishes administrative procedures for registration. The law prohibits the coexistence of two or more unions in the same state agency. Article 372 of the labor law bans foreign nationals from being members of trade union executive bodies, and Article 395 was an “exclusion clause,” which allowed employers to terminate the contract of an employee who quits the union. In 2011 the Supreme Court determined that the exclusion clause was unconstitutional. On November 30, the law was modified and Article 395 was revoked.

A union established in accordance with its own bylaws may call for a strike or bargain collectively. The government can grant legal recognition to unions, a process known as “toma de nota,” either to union executive leaders individually or to the entire executive committee. The law limits the right to strike for a number of public officials, including many that do not exercise authority in the name of the government. The law also restricts government employees--including banking sector employees--from striking unless there is a “systematic violation of their rights” and requires that a two-thirds majority of workers in the relevant public service entity be in favor of a strike. Before a strike may be considered legal, a union must file a “notice to strike” with the appropriate labor authorities.

Although the law authorizes the coexistence of several unions, it sets rules on which union has priority and limits collective bargaining to the union that has the largest number of workers. Migrant workers are excluded from relevant legal protections.

The government did not consistently protect worker rights in practice. Its general failure to enforce labor and other laws left workers without much recourse with regard to violations of freedom of association, working conditions, or other problems. Union organizers from several sectors complained about the overt and usually hostile involvement of the government when organizers attempted to develop independent unions. The process for official government recognition of unions was politicized, and the government occasionally used the process to reward political allies or punish political opponents. According to union organizers, government labor boards frequently rejected union registration applications on technicalities. In addition, independent union activists claimed that the requirement that the government approve strikes in advance gave authorities the power to show favoritism by determining which companies would be protected from strikes.

Although few formal strikes occurred, in part because of the numerous restrictions on strikes, informal work freezes by both union and nonunionized groups were fairly common. According to union activists, employers frequently did not attend conciliation meetings between the parties as a stalling tactic.

Protection (company-controlled) unions continued to be a problem in all sectors, and many observers noted that a majority of organized workers belonged to unrepresentative unions. Protection contracts are a violation of International Labor Organization Convention 87, regarding freedom of association. Officially sanctioned “protection contracts”--formal agreements whereby the company created an unrepresentative union in exchange for labor peace and other concessions--were common in all sectors and often prevented workers from fully exercising their labor rights as defined by law. These contracts were often developed prior to the company hiring any workers at a new job site and managed without direct input from workers. Collective bargaining agreements resulting from protection contracts usually failed to provide worker benefits beyond the legal minimum and impeded the rights of independent unions to effectively and legitimately bargain collectively on behalf of workers.

According to several NGOs and unions, many workers continued to face intimidation during bargaining rights elections from other workers, union leaders, or employers favoring a particular union. The practice of a voice vote was declared illegal by the Supreme Court but was still widely used. However, practices such as providing very limited notice prior to an election and allowing management or nonemployees to vote were increasingly common. The new labor reform law, which came into effect on December 1, establishes that union votes must be held via secret ballot, either directly or indirectly.

Workers were excluded from official unions for trying to organize their colleagues into separate, independent unions. The “exclusion clause” in the law gave these unions the right to prevent the formation of an authentic union by expelling agitators from the “official” union, thereby obliging the company to fire these individuals. Some fired workers accused unions of harassment and intimidation.

On May 31, the Worker Support Center (CAT) announced that it was obliged to cease all operations in the State of Puebla. The announcement came after the kidnapping and torture of CAT staffer Jose Enrique Morales Montano on May 15 and subsequent death threats made against CAT’s executive director Blanca Velásquez. The CAT had barely restarted its community and educational outreach with workers and families in early 2012, after the December 2010 ransacking of their offices and the January 2011 death threats against Velasquez, when Leobardo Soto, a federal deputy and Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) leader in Puebla, publicly blamed the CAT for labor unrest. Soto stated in the local press that all means, including violence, would be used to prevent the CAT from continuing its work. The CAT filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office, which opened an investigation into the incidents; however, by year’s end the investigation had not progressed significantly. Protective measures recommended by IACHR in 2011 for the CAT were renewed on May 29.

Finnish auto parts producer, PKC Group, purchased a 7,000-worker wire-harnesses plant in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, in October 2011. The independent mining union, Los Mineros Section 307, was legally registered as a representative of workers at the factory since 2009, although company owners had never agreed to bargain with the local union section. On January 12, the PKC management announced to workers that it had signed a collective bargaining agreement with a CTM affiliated union in October 2011 in order to protect the workers’ interests and that it was paying the workers’ dues to the protection union. On February 3, Los Mineros filed for the legal right for a worker election to decide union representation and control of the collective bargaining agreement. After several attempts to refuse admission to Los Mineros request for an election, the Federal Mediation and Arbitration Board scheduled a vote for October 18. The vote was carried out after months of intense anti-Mineros campaigning by the PKC, allegedly in collaboration with the CTM and the local authorities. The campaign allegedly included the infiltration of Los Mineros meetings by CTM officials and company management, CTM-fueled rumors and threats of plant closure and mass lay-offs, a media slur campaign against Los Mineros and the Border Worker Committee Chief Financial Officer, and the deportation of a United Auto Workers staffer and film maker recording events leading up to the vote. For the day of the vote, more than 1,000 former PKC workers were rehired and instructed to vote for the CTM. Los Mineros officially withdrew its participation, claiming it was a fraudulent election, and requested another vote. In the meantime, a formal complaint citing the PKC’s antiunion animus was filed with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.