Featured Image Credit: C4 en Alerta
Topics: News, World News, Mexico, Crime
Kit Roberts
Warning - this article contains content that some readers may find distressing
Terrifying footage reveals a death threat made to a journalist in Mexico by members of a drug cartel.
Carlos Jiménez is a journalist working in Mexico on the broadcaster C4 en Alerta, and revealed to his viewers that he had received a death threat.
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In a brave move, Jiménez publicly aired the threat which had been sent to him to his viewers, giving a harrowing image of the dangers faced by journalists working in Mexico.
The video shows a group of masked men, with many of them clearly showing off guns in their hands. One of the men stands at the front and addresses the camera and issues a terrifying threat to the reporter.
Addressing the camera in Spanish, the man says: "You like scratching the lion's balls? This time you scratched the wrong ones."
"You've f*cked up big time. We know where you live, where you work, where you work out, where you eat, where your family lives, in which vehicles and motorcycles you drive.
"There's no place you can hide from us. We are going to hunt you down like a f*cking animal."
In a harrowing moment, the man then indicates a cardboard box which the group is holding on a fallen tree behind him.
He says: "We have your cardboard box where we are going to cut you up in bits," before finishing by saying: "You've done f*cked up, motherf*cker."
Another audio clip shows the group also threatening Jiménez' family, saying in a voicemail on his phone: "Your family and everyone is f*cked," and told him to 'start counting your days'.
Jiménez responded with a defiant speech, saying: "My job as a reporter is to keep you informed. I will continue to do so. I will continue to display the faces and names of the criminals.
"I will continue to showcase those who do harm to society, feel impotent, and that believe they are untouchable. I have always said it and will continue saying it - there is more good than evil.
"We deserve a country without this kind of scoundrel and scumbags, and for that we are here, doing our part."
The threat was issued in 2023. Jiménez had been under official protection since 2019, and reports in Mexican media at the time of the threat said that his protection was increased as a result of the threat.
A report in Diario Presente said the protection was "using all the possible means and resources to guarantee his safety and his life."
It is with good reason, as Mexico remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists to work.
According to Forbes, as of May 2024, 153 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000.
Journalism advocacy organisation Reporters Without Borders highlights collusion between cartels and politicians, saying that it "poses a grave threat to journalists’ safety and cripples the judicial system at all levels."