History of Censorship in Mexico

Description: Federal republic bordering the United States to the south

Significance: Essentially a one-party state since 1917, Mexico has a history of superficially free speech with subtle— and not so subtle—restrictions on actual expression

As was typical in Spanish colonial America, early Mexican society was dominated by small, powerful, elite groups, including the Spanish military, administrators, and the Roman Catholic church. Catholicism was the official religion of Spain. As the only permitted religion, the Catholic church was responsible for education, which enabled it—and the elite in general—to isolate Mexico from the modern ideas of the Renaissance (which would later have considerable influence on the British colonies that became the United States of America). In addition, in order to limit access to nonacceptable information, ports were closed and trade was only allowed with Spain. The legacy of this system was a fundamental lack of tolerance of diverse views that affected Mexican society for decades after its independence from Spain.

Besides this power, the Catholic church also controlled nearly half of the arable land in Mexico by the early nineteenth century. This enabled the church, and the Spanish colonists, forcefully to integrate the native population. As was common throughout Latin America, this power structure left a legacy of a divided society, in which a small number of powerholders oppressed the vast majority.

Mexican independence, declared in 1810, was followed by years of civil war, violently crushed rebellions, and oppression of Indians and others. After Porfirio Díaz became dictator of Mexico in 1876, he established many of the patterns of behavior that would characterize Mexican politics for the next century. He forcefully recruited labor into government-controlled organizations, while at the same time violently repressing strikes. Díaz’s position was secured by government censorship of virtually all forms of expression. He was driven from office in May of 1911 at the beginning of what Mexicans have since called their revolution.

The Mexican Revolution, after several years of back and forth fighting, produced the institution that would dominate the Mexican landscape for the rest of the century, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Although there were no formal censorship laws, PRI and the interests of its leadership shaped all forms of expression allowed and outlawed over the next several decades through various mechanisms and the party’s control of the most powerful institution in Mexican society, the federal presidency.

Mass Media

One of the most important areas in society for an authoritarian government to control is the press. PRI developed several mechanisms for controlling what newspapers, television, and radio could present to citizens. Reporters have been expected to respect the privacy of individual leaders (a tradition that has protected politicians against investigation of possible crimes or abuses of power), and not to disturb the public peace or morals (which has resulted in control of artistic forms of expression and latitude in rejecting stories). The most severe tool has been violence. Between 1984 and 1986, for example, 152 journalists were attacked physically, and from 1971 to 1986 forty-two journalists lost their lives for pursuing stories that the government did not want publicized, or for being overly critical of leaders or policies. Many of them were victims of death squads with suspected links to the military.

Although most of the press and broadcast media have been privately owned, they have operated under strict governmental supervision by several different agencies. The government and the PRI have also used bribery to prevent reporters from developing stories counter to elite interests. Salaries for journalists have been small, and their unions have been weak. Some estimates suggest that up to 90 percent of reporters have accepted pay-offs. Newspapers and magazines have also frequently published, without attribution, materials prepared by government officials.

The entertainment industries have been subject to moral laws under the Organic Law of Public Education (1951), which provided for the regulation of films—the one constitutionally acceptable form of censorship in Mexico.

Labor

Mexican labor unions were organized under the guidance and direction of the state. This represents another typical pattern of PRI control, co-optation. Union leaders, through bribery or intimidation, have been forced to subordinate the interests and views of union members to those of the party. The state has also had the power to decide if strikes were legal or not. It has incarcerated leaders of wildcat strikes as political prisoners, as was done in 1958–9 to the leaders of a railway strike. Whenever the rank-and-file members of these groups have begun to demand union democracy, the state has violently repressed these movements. During the 1950s and 1960s, peasants and workers launched numerous protest actions, which were either repressed or co-opted.

Political Opposition

Some degree of political dissent has always been allowed in Mexico, but its level and tone have been controlled by the government. During the Díaz administration, for example, special police forces were established to patrol the countryside to control radical dissent. When opposition expressions were seen by elites to be threatening to society or social order, the military stepped in. The military in Mexico has defined its role as “maintaining national security,” which has often meant breaking up strikes and controlling mass protests, which have often been seen by the military as insurrection attempts. According to some, the elite counterinsurgency group, “White Brigade,” based in Mexico City’s Military Camp 1, was responsible for torturing and killing many of the five hundred “disappeared” persons in Mexico, almost all from the left-wing opposition. Private forces have also put down demands by peasants for radical reform, such as redistribution of the land. Twenty-six peasants were killed in one such dispute in 1992, for example.

The government and PRI have also used the allure of political power and money to co-opt and disarm dissident peasant leaders, lawyers, labor leaders, and intellectuals. Many of the best minds of academia—both students and faculty— regardless of their ideological orientations, have worked for the state, because that is where the best opportunities have been.

In the political arena, until the 1980s, Mexicans rarely had the chance to vote for leftist opposition candidates. For many years the only opposition party allowed was conservative. Even when more parties were allowed to participate in the system, mechanisms were put in place to limit their influence, such as limiting the numbers of seats in legislatures open to them, or invoking claims of electoral fraud to prevent them from taking office. Many Mexicans believed, for example, that the 1988 presidential election was actually won by opposition candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, and not PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

The Roman Catholic Church

After its initial period of dominance, the church was subjected to discrimination from a liberal, anticlerical movement that developed soon after independence. The 1857 constitution, which confiscated church property, began this process. The revolutionary constitution of 1917 went further. Religious education was made illegal, political groups were forbidden from bearing names referring to religious denominations, and religious publications were prohibited from discussing political matters. In fact, the church had no legal standing in Mexico until 1982. Despite these legal provisions, because of the church’s traditional heritage and role in society, religious schools continued to exist, and the church continued to have a strong influence on society.

Late Twentieth Century Developments

Freedom of expression was guaranteed under two articles of the 1917 constitution, which states, “the expression of ideas will not be the subject of any judicial or administrative inquisitions” and “the freedom to write and publish on any matter cannot be violated. No law or authority can establish prior censorship.” However, the letter of this law has frequently been undermined by the spirit in which it has been enforced. However, after the mid-1980s there were some improvements. In late 1982, for example, legislation was passed outlawing the practice of officeholders’ providing payments to reporters.

One mechanism that the government once used to control the press was its monopoly over the production and distribution of newsprint. The government could withhold shipments of paper from newspapers that it wanted to punish, and provide extra paper—which could be sold at a profit—to those it wanted to reward. Mexican membership in the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs and the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s has reduced this power somewhat, as newspapers have gained access to other sources of newsprint.

In the 1980s and 1990s opposition parties made significant gains at the municipal and gubernatorial levels, sometimes even defeating PRI candidates. At the federal level, opposition seats in the legislature were expanded from 100 to 150 in 1986. Even the Mexican Communist Party was legalized. In 1987 student demonstrations with more than 150,000 participants were met with negotiations rather than troops, as in the past. In 1991 Mexican bishops openly expressed their concerns about torture, political persecution, corruption, and electoral fraud, and no action was taken against them.

Nevertheless, the state and PRI still maintained important controls on the expression of opinions. 68 percent of the revenue that newspapers and magazines received came from government sources, directly and indirectly (as through government-owned businesses.) This fact led many publications to engage in self-censorship to avoid the possibility of losing these revenues. Bank loans, electricity, telephone service, and health code inspections could also be manipulated by the state to punish the publication of criticism beyond acceptable levels.

Monopoly ownership was also an obstacle to freedom in the broadcast industry. The Ministry of the Interior retained wide-ranging powers to ensure that “information meets the established norms” in this area. The ministry also controlled much of the production and content of films. In the book-publishing business, while generally open, many publishers continued to engage in self-censorship because of the punishment tools available to the government.

Twenty-First Century

Mexico's troubles with free expression continued into the twenty-first century, and an increase in violent attacks against journalists in the 2010s earned it a reputation as one of the most dangerous places in the world for media workers. The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) stated that eighty-eight journalists and media workers were killed between 2000 and 2014. Crime reporters writing about organized crime have been particularly subject to fatal attacks, although many nonfatal attacks on journalists have been attributed to corrupt or abusive government officials. Even anonymous "citizen journalists" who share information on criminal activity and missing persons on social media have allegedly been targeted by criminal gangs. Though the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Freedom of Expression was created in 2012 to deal with the attacks on journalists, it has neglected or prematurely closed many cases. According to the CNDH in 2014, 89 percent of crimes against journalists go unpunished. Meanwhile, self-censorship and antagonism from the police remain major problems for news outlets.

Diversity of media ownership is strong in print media, but broadcast news has continued to be dominated by Televisa, which in 2014 controlled 70 percent of free-to-air television as well as being the largest cable and satellite provider, and to a lesser extent by TV Azteca. Both companies have been accused of corruption and biased reportage, and as they together control 90 percent of free and paid television and many Mexicans do not use the internet, they can effectively control and limit the access to information of much of the public. A new telecommunications and broadcasting law, passed in 2014, provided greater protection against monopolies and established access to telecommunications and broadcasting services as a human right, but also allowed the government to monitor and shut down internet activity "to prevent crime" and required internet companies to save information on their users to be provided to the government upon request.

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