A report by the group Article 19 has documented almost 700 crimes towards media employees, probably the most on report.

An annual report by the free speech group Article 19 has discovered that Mexican journalists confronted report ranges of harassment, intimidation and violence in 2022.

The group recorded 696 crimes towards Mexican media employees, the best quantity for the reason that group began retaining information in 2007. That quantities to almost one assault towards a journalist each 13 hours, in keeping with the report launched on Tuesday.

“In Mexico, journalists are killed, however they’re additionally intimidated and silenced systematically and recurrently by means of harassment, stigmatization, threats and the illegitimate use of public energy,” the report stated.

The report discovered that, moderately than combatting the violence, state actors and safety forces have been accountable for greater than 40 p.c of the aggressions towards media employees. Of these circumstances, greater than half concerned reporters exploring problems with corruption.

Finally, 12 journalists have been murdered in 2022, a tie with 2017 for probably the most deadly 12 months on report.

The most typical type of harassment over the past three years was “intimidation and harassment”, in keeping with the report. An estimated 181 circumstances have been recorded in 2022 alone.

The violence towards the press mirrored bigger problems with violence and human rights abuses in Mexico. General, 2022 marked an “unimaginable milestone” for human rights violations, with greater than 100,000 folks recorded as lacking as of Might 2022, the report defined.

In Tuesday’s report, Article 19 regional director Leopoldo Maldonado decried failed authorities efforts to make sure safety and justice for reporters amid the deteriorating circumstances. He known as progress on the difficulty “nearly nonexistent”.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has been criticised prior to now for his antagonistic relationship with the Mexican press. The report accuses Lopez Obrador of contributing to a hostile environment for reporters by means of “threats, intimidation and harassment”.

His administration has been accused of utilizing Pegasus surveillance expertise, developed by the Israeli NSO Group, to spy on journalists and human rights advocates.

However Lopez Obrador has additionally lambasted using such expertise. In July 2021, the British newspaper The Guardian revealed that Lopez Obrador and his shut allies had doubtlessly been focused utilizing the adware.

An estimated 15,000 Mexican cellphone numbers have been reported to be compromised, together with these of 25 Mexican journalists.

The NSO Group has been on the centre of the controversy about business adware getting used to focus on political dissent, and the group was sanctioned by the USA in 2021.