“A warrior woman”: who was Lourdes Maldonado, the journalist murdered in Mexico (and why she asked AMLO for help)

One day after the Mexican photojournalist Margarito Martínez was murdered on January 17, his colleague, Lourdes Maldonado, dedicated his entire radio and television program to him as a tribute.

“For all of us it has been a shock (…). In the microsecond that he opened the door (of his car) and bent down to put his stuff down, boom, he got shot in the head. If that is not planned and it is not hunted, I don’t know what you would call it (…). We are all demanding that his murder not go unpunished.” he stated bluntly live.

Only five days after saying these words, a few kilometers away, Maldonado was also murdered in the same city, Tijuana, in the north of the country considered the deadliest to practice journalism.

Maldonado was aware of the risk he was running. “I fear for my life” He even told Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador face to face during a press conference three years ago.

According to colleagues and union organizations, Maldonado was registered in the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which, however, did not serve to prevent her death.

“It is not responsible to advance any judgment”, López Obrador exposed this Monday, although he assured that his commitment is “that there be no impunity, that those responsible be found.”

“An example” for journalists from Baja California

Lourdes Maldonado had an extensive professional career in different media, especially covering politics and corruption issues in the state of Baja California.

He worked at Televisa, Primer Sistema de Noticias (PSN) and the weekly Séptimo Día, among other media.

For a few months, he presented the program “Brebaje” on the radio station Sintoniza sin Fronteras and on streaming of video through the Internet, where she was identified as “an icon of communication in Baja California”.

Indeed, after learning of his death this Sunday when he was shot inside his vehicle in front of his house, in an area full of houses, many colleagues lamented his death and recognized it on social networks. as “mentor” of many professionals.

“Lulú broke in Baja California with a style of journalism that was then totally subservient to power and corrupted. In the universities she was made an example of her style with which she never shut up,” she tells BBC Mundo Laura Sanchez Law, journalist originally from Tijuana.

“She was a warrior woman, and more so at a time when journalists were relegated to covering shows and social events in a totally macho state. She had become a voice of the people, opening the microphone for people from the periphery, the migrants… He was an example for all of us.”.

Maldonado, who was part of the Club Primera Plana, which recognizes the work of fellow journalists, had proposed creating a contest in commemoration of Margarito Martínez during a vigil held this weekend in Tijuana to demand justice for the photojournalist, according to the Zeta weekly.

The Mexicali Journalists Network demanded that the State Prosecutor’s Office not rule out any line of investigation.

“Mainly the threats to his person and the attack on his vehicle (…), whose acts he denounced as they were for his journalistic practice and for a labor lawsuit against a company where she had worked as a reporter and host,” she said in a statement.

asked the president for help

The company the organization refers to is PSN, a local television channel owned by the former state governor Jaime Bonilla, leader of the party of López Obrador (Morena).

For almost a decade, Maldonado had maintained a wrongful termination lawsuit against the company he worked for for six years. It was this conflict that led him to ask President López Obrador for help in 2019.

“I come here to ask you for support, help and labor justice, because I even fear for my life”, he told him in one of the mornings.

“It is (Bonilla) a strong character in politics who does not intend to pay me much less (…). And I know that against the corruption that exists in the Federal Conciliation Board and the one that I am experiencing now in Tijuana with this powerful character Nothing or little, I can do nothing without your support, Mr. President,” he added.

After listening to her, López Obrador publicly asked the coordinator of Social Communication to attend to and support Maldonado “so that it does justice, that there is no influence and to act within the framework of the law”.

However, Maldonado denounced continuing to receive threats and last year he accessed the Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists in Baja California, which, according to the Mexicali Journalists Network, consisted of “tours of the Tijuana Municipal Police.”

“That mechanism has definitely been a failure., it must be reviewed because it does not protect the lives of journalists,” criticizes journalist Sánchez Ley, who years ago had to leave Tijuana after suffering an attack and feeling that she was putting her family at risk because of her work.

The Baja California border is a drug trafficking route, a regular agenda for local journalists who become targets of drug traffickers and corrupt authorities.

“You want to do journalism in Tijuana, but you denounced the narco-politician and on Sunday he was at the table next to where you were having breakfast with your family. It is a very difficult and complex situation.” Sanchez Ley assures.

“Everyone is in collusion, everyone knows each other. You cannot do free journalism and there comes a time when you know that you have to shut up or you have to go to keep doing it,” he denounces helplessly.

The spokesman for the Secretary General of the United Nations, Stephane Dujarric, called for his part on Monday the Mexican authorities “to reinforce the protection of journalists and in particular to take more measures to prevent new attacks against them.”

“You have to see the mobile”

But the conflict of Maldonado With her old company, she turned around when, just a few days ago, the journalist announced that she had won the labor lawsuit.

On January 19, PSN was notified of a commercial embargo in favor of Maldonado, who went with his lawyer to the company’s offices due to the refusal of his former employer to settle the debts he had with her.

According to what the newspaper La Jornada published at the time, the company reported that it continues to function normally and that “its legal representative is in contact with the affected party and there will surely be an agreement.”

“From today PSN is embargoed in my favor and Bonilla was there, but he did not receive us”the journalist told local media that day.

Just four days later, Maldonado was murdered. When asked about it this Monday, President López Obrador asked “not to advance any trial” until a “thorough” investigation is carried out to prevent the case from going unpunished.

“You have to see the cell phone, if there is a connection with the work-related complaint and see who is responsible, see it with a lot of responsibility (…). It cannot be done like this, automatically, link a labor claim to a crime”, He said.

“Do not stop considering the political, because there is always confrontation, there are differences and you always seek to harm adversaries,” he added, while assuring that his request for help in 2019 “was not a matter of threats, of violence; helped him and guaranteed that his request would be met”.

The current governor of Baja California, Marina del Pilar AvilaHe promised to put “all the strength of the State to do justice.”

But despite the promises, the protection of journalists continues to be one of the clear pending tasks of the Mexican authorities, which has become the deadliest country to practice this profession.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, nine reporters died violently in 2021. So far in 2022, there are already three victims on this list of which Lourdes Maldonado became a part of this Sunday, and to whom her colleagues stand with admiration.

“We will always remember you as a brave, professional and with a peculiar style of doing critical journalism”, reads a message posted alongside a black ribbon by the last company he worked for.

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