Emilio Gutierrez Soto and the Fight to Protect Journalists

[Judi Lynn]

DECEMBER 28, 2017

By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

For the 25th year in a row, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has released its annual survey of journalists killed around the world. The list includes 42 journalists and four media workers killed, some while covering war, others murdered in retaliation for their reporting. Another 20 were killed in circumstances that CPJ cannot confirm were related to their work. A record 262 journalists were imprisoned around the world, with Turkey, China and Egypt topping the list for the second year in a row. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump wages a relentless campaign to discredit journalism in the U.S., often with rhetoric that could potentially incite his followers to violence. Trump’s policy of ramping up mass deportations could even send one Mexican journalist, currently jailed in the U.S., back to Mexico, where he might be killed.

Emilio Gutierrez Soto is being held in immigration detention in El Paso, Texas, along with his 24-year-old son, Oscar. They fled Mexico in 2008, seeking political asylum after Emilio received death threats for his work as a reporter.

“I wrote some articles where I described how the military was acting in the northwest of Chihuahua,” Emilio told us, via telephone, on the “Democracy Now!” news hour, from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement prison. “This caused disgust at the Ministry of Defense, which sent the head of the 5th Military Zone in Chihuahua, General Garcia Vega, to threaten me, saying I had already written three articles noting corruption and assaults against the population by members of the military. He said, ‘You’ve written three articles, and there’s not going to be a fourth one.’ And, of course, there was a fourth article.”

That was in 2005. In 2008, Emilio received an urgent message from a friend who had heard from someone in the military that he was being targeted for assassination. He grabbed his vital documents and his son, Oscar, and fled to the U.S. After seven months in detention, he was released, pending a court ruling on his request for political asylum. Emilio and Oscar survived by operating a food truck in New Mexico until last July, when the judge ruled against him. They were taken to the immigration jail in handcuffs. From detention, Emilio appealed the decision.

More:
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/12/28/emilio_gutierrez_soto_and_the_fight