In Mexico, journalists face threats from attackers — and from the system meant to protect them, too

TLAXCALA DE XICOHTÉNCATL, Mexico (AP) — Three years ago, Alberto Amaro was sitting at home when he heard two gunshots. His son, playing in the garden, ran inside in terror. When Amaro reached the front gate, he saw two armed men running down his street.

Amaro, 38, a journalist in the central Mexican state of Tlaxcala, says he immediately reported the shooting to the federal agency responsible for protecting journalists and requested emergency measures. “More than 48 hours passed without a response,” he says. Amaro eventually turned to a court, which ordered security for his family.

His is not an isolated case. What happened to Amaro was one of multiple frightening encounters that exposed shortcomings in Mexico’s federal Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, a program created in 2012 to safeguard people threatened because of their work.

Between 2017 and 2022, eight journalists were killed while enrolled in Mexico’s federal Protection Mechanism, according to a joint investigation by Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Amaro joined the Mechanism in 2019, shortly after founding his outlet. Since then, he has lived through more than 30 violent or menacing encounters, including death threats, detention, gunfire and intimidation linked to his reporting on police, government officials and organized crime.

In 2023, after he reported receiving direct death threats from a mayor, the Mechanism classified Amaro as being at high risk and assigned him bodyguards.

The agency later sought to withdraw his protection despite acknowledging that he remained at high risk. Amaro went to court and a judge ordered authorities to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment.

“I worry about what I publish, whether I’ll be killed when I leave home or make it back that day,” says Amaro, who founded the digital news outlet La Prensa de Tlaxcala in 2019. “I also have to worry about making sure they don’t take away my protection measures.”

Mexico remains one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists outside of active war zones. CPJ has documented six journalist killings in the country in 2026, five of them in just over two months.

Priscila Pacheco, 34, the eldest daughter of journalist Francisco Pacheco, has spent more than a decade fighting for protection since her father was shot dead outside his home in Taxco, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, in 2016. An investigative journalist who reported on local government corruption, he founded El Foro de Taxco with his wife, Verónica, in 1998.

“I think the hardest thing for me was having to choose a coffin for my father,” says Priscila, the last person to see him alive.

After more death threats, Priscila, her mother and two siblings fled days after the murder, abandoning their home and printing press. More than a decade later, they remain displaced and the killing remains unsolved.

Propuesta Cívica, a Mexican civil society organization that provides legal support to journalists and their families, estimates that 98% of journalist homicides remain unpunished. “The deeper structural problem is that the Mechanism has been given a responsibility that belongs to the state as a whole," says Vanessa Carrillo, Propuesta Cívica's codirector.

Despite ongoing threats, Priscila said the Mechanism has denied her personal protection because she works as a public employee. She works for the state-level Protection Mechanism in Toluca, in the State of Mexico.

The security measures provided to her family have been unreliable, she says. Their panic button does not always work, and Priscila has none she can carry herself. Security equipment installed at the family’s home, including cameras, locks and lights, is not properly maintained, she says, and police patrols are often skipped or conducted only after a formal written request.

At annual risk reassessments, Priscila has to repeatedly ask more than 20 officials not to withdraw the limited protection her family still receives.

“It seems they need you to receive a direct threat, or for someone to actually come and do something to you,” she says.

The family has no plans to return to Taxco while violence persists. “We will never feel safe. Security is something that has been taken from us,” she says. “It has become something utopian for us, because it is the authorities themselves who have failed us.”

Jonathan Cuevas, 38, spent three years displaced from his home in Iguala, Guerrero, after threats linked to his reporting on organized crime and local officials.

In 2020, Mexico’s Protection Mechanism arranged for him to live in a safe house in Mexico City, but the threats continued. He was transferred between three safe houses during his displacement.

“My return to Iguala wasn’t the result of any government action,” Cuevas says. “It happened simply because the groups agreed to a truce.”

An agreement between two rival criminal groups fighting for control of the area allowed Cuevas and other displaced journalists to return in 2023.

But after he returned, Cuevas says two people warned him to stop publishing stories about the local prosecutor’s office, threatening to kill him if he continued. He eventually stopped reporting on those issues. Cuevas says the Mechanism documented the attacks he reported but failed to coordinate with federal prosecutors.

The protection measures also proved inconsistent and often ill-suited to his work, he says. The panic button he received does not work in communities without cell service, where he often reports, while security patrols are irregular.

Cuevas has refused bodyguards, saying that moving around with armed men would make him an easier target. He believes the system prioritizes keeping journalists in safe houses over allowing them to continue working. Although displacement can offer greater security, it separates local journalists from their families, communities and sources.

“What happens," Cuevas asks, "to those of us who want to keep working and practicing journalism?”

The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights has emphasized that the state must prevent attacks and reduce risks, not simply investigate them. “The system’s success," Carrillo says, must also be measured by “its ability to reduce risks, prevent further attacks and allow journalists to continue their work freely and safely.”

According to Propuesta Cívica, Mexico’s federal Protection Mechanism is hampered by bureaucratic delays, insufficient staffing and a reactive approach. Protection measures are often inadequate, risk assessments delayed and safeguards withdrawn despite ongoing threats.

In 2025, President Claudia Sheinbaum said the Protection Mechanism could receive additional funding if needed, but Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says the government has made little progress in fulfilling its press freedom commitments, including a promised review of the Mechanism.

The Associated Press contacted Mexico’s Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists several times seeking an interview. A senior official declined to be interviewed, and the agency has not responded to subsequent requests.

After spending a year in Spain with his family because of threats, Alberto Amaro underwent another assessment. It classified him as facing a high risk but found that his family did not. In 2025, authorities sought to withdraw his family’s bodyguards and eventually restricted some of their movements. Amaro challenged the decisions in court and won.

In one recent threat, Amaro received a call from an unknown number. The caller claimed to be a senior operative with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and warned him to watch what he writes.

Despite having two bodyguards with him around the clock, Amaro says he still does not feel safe.

“If I come across four people," he says, “they have already beaten us.”