Mexico: Billionaire businessman joins academics, activists demanding freedom of expression

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim speaks during a news conference in Mexico City, Monday, Aug. 17, 2009. Slim attended the Foundation for the Freedom of Expression, signing a new accord called, "Mexico Chapter 2009." (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) (AP)

MEXICO CITY — Billionaire businessman Carlos Slim joined academics and human rights advocates on Monday in demanding a renewed national commitment to a free press and an end to attacks on journalists.

Declaring free speech as a fundamental human right, the group of 21 leaders signed a nine-page Commitment to Freedom of Expression, a detailed proposal for Mexico to provide the public with access to information, transparency in government activities and the right to safely report news.

"Free speech is a powerful tool. We are what we say," said former Bolivian President Carlos Mesa, one of the signers. "Representative democracy is not enough. We have to find new ways to limit political power."

Attorney and journalist Benjamin Fernandez, who worked with a group of 60 people from throughout Latin America to write the declaration, said he expects social and business leaders in other countries to sign it as well.

"This document conveys society's role in protecting, defending, demanding freedom of expression for the media, which has generally been persecuted in Mexico," Fernandez said.

Slim, who has large media stakes in Mexico and is a major investor of the New York Times Co., told a crowd of about 200 people gathered at the National Museum of Anthropology that the Internet and telecommunication advances have opened irreversible avenues for free speech. The result, he said, is that Mexico is now enjoying "a high level of freedom of expression."

But Jorge Carpizo, a legal professor at the Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, said the deaths of 50 journalists here in the past 10 years have prompted "high levels of self- censorship."

Underscoring the problem, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission on Monday condemned the arrests of four Mexican journalists who the organization said were blindfolded, handcuffed and beaten on Aug. 7 after federal authorities picked them up during a military operation. The reporters, accused of working with a drug cartel, were released after 16 hours.

The document signed Monday is a project of the Foundation for Freedom of Expression, which was founded in October 2008. The organization has also launched a Web site where reporters and other members of the public in Mexico can report threats and assaults against freedom of expression, as well as efforts by government agencies to hide or lie about public information.