2005: Lydia Cacho

2005

Lydia Cacho - Mexico

Arrested, Threatened

Lydia Cacho born 1963, Mexico City, is an award-winning author, journalist and women's rights activist. Following the publication of her first book in 2005, on child pornography in Mexico, she was arrested, detained and ill treated before being subjected to a year-long criminal defamation lawsuit. She was cleared of all charges in 2007 but continues to be the target of harassment and death threats due to her investigative journalism.

In the spring of 2005, Cacho published Los Demonios del Eden: El Poder Que Protege a la Pornografía Infantil (The Demons of Eden: The Power That Protects Child Pornography), an exposé of child abuse and pornography rings in Cancun. In her book, she accuses, a Cancun hotel owner, of being involved in a child pornography ring. She mentions Kamel Nacif Borge, a Puebla businessman, as protecting him, as well as implicating various well known politicians.

In October 2005, seven months after the publication of her book, Nacif Borge sued Cacho for criminal defamation. A few days later, police officers from the state of Puebla forced Cacho into a van and drove her 950 miles across Mexico, reportedly ramming gun barrels into her face and taunting her for 20 hours with threats that she would be drowned, raped or murdered. She was released on bail.

On 14 February 2006, several telephone conversations between Nacif Borge and Mario Marín, governor of the state of Puebla, were revealed by the Mexico City daily La Jornada, creating a media frenzy. In these conversations, which took place before Cacho's arrest, Marín and Nacif Borge discussed putting Cacho in jail as a favour, and having her beaten and abused while in jail in order to silence her. In January 2007, Cacho was acquitted of all charges of defamation.

Cacho remains under threat. In late May 2009, Cacho reported being followed and watched by unknown individuals, some of them armed. She has also been receiving death threats via her blog since February 2009, including one which reportedly said that she would soon appear with her throat slit. Her appeals to police to investigate these incidents have been refused. The death threats continue.

Cacho's work includes three non-fiction books: Los Demonios del Edén (The Demons of Eden: The Power That Protects Child Pornography) (2005), Memorias de una Infamia (Memoirs of a Scandal) (2008), which describes the author's abduction and trial, and Con mi hij@ no (Not with my daughter/son) (2009). She is also a columnist for the Mexico City newspaper, El Universal. In addition to her work as a journalist, Cacho founded and directs the Refuge Center for Abused Women of Cancun and is president of the Center for Women's Assistance, which aids victims of domestic violence and gender discrimination.

Cacho has won numerous awards for her work including the Tucholsky prize from Swedish PEN (2008), the Freedom of Expression prize from Spanish Journalists' Union in Valencia (2008), the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize (2008), the Oxfam/Novib PEN Award for Free Expression (2007), the Amnesty International Ginetta Sagan Award for Women and Children's Rights(2007) and the PEN Canada One Humanity Award (2009).

Writing Sample:

To leave Mexico or to remain? I have received hundreds of letters, some asking me to go away and others saying that I should remain, that I do not back out, that I am not alone.

Families of parents or children who were kidnapped, some of them killed, some survivors of criminal ambition, write to me. Women and men in distress searching for their children snatched by "child robbers" in some park or corner of Mexico. Indignant housewives and businessmen who confess they do not have my courage but are in solidarity write to me. Fourteen-year-old children write to me who do not understand, nor wish to understand, man's cruelty.
...

I am not going away, I am not going anywhere other than forward, to shed light on everything. Because we lost in the court but gained in vindicating good journalism, our right to know the truth, to reclaim honesty, solidarity and the culture applied to our human rights.

I do not remain in Mexico to be brave, I stay for dignity. I, Lydia Cacho, will not give my liberty, neither my right to be near my loves and friends, to the political-business-criminal mafias. I will not give them another nightmare, nor give them my fury, only my inner peace. I will not give them the power to frighten me; only be aware of mean-spirited men and women.

Every year, 400,000 people flee Mexico, expelled by poverty, violence and corruption. We cannot keep adding to the Mexican exile. I respect those who wish to leave and change their life. Quitting the country is a brave act. There are millions of us dreaming of a different country. That is why I know, as you write to me, that I am not alone. To paraphrase the wonderful poet and affectionate friend, Eliseo Alberto, "If a moment is enough for dying, why is it not going to be enough for change?"

Those, the corrupt, the evil, are in reality very few. We men and women, on the other hand, keep being the majority, and so I do not lose the hope that Mexico can change.

From Cacho's response to recent offers of exile by Louise Arbour, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and by French and Spanish officials. Accessed 3 March 2010 as a Google Document