domingo, octubre 26, 2014

Councillor from Mexico City’s borough threatens news site over right to be forgotten

The link between Rubalcava Suárez, (a member of Peña Nieto’s political party PRI), and a threat of violence against a news organisation, does little to alleviate the image of Peña Nieto´s government as one that has focused on economic reforms at the expense of law and order

An elected official from Mexico City has threatened news site SinEmbargo over its on-line publication of embarrassing photographs, including one where he poses showing his muscles in front of an armored tank.
Mexico City-based SinEmbargo said that it was originally treating the matter as a ‘right to be forgotten’ case that started when a lawyer requested the removal of several photos obtained 2 years ago from the Facebook profile of Adrián Rubalcava Suárez, who runs the borough of Cuajimalpa.
According to SinEmbargo, it has received over the last couple of weeks several threatening emails from a person who claims to be Rubalcava Suárez’s lawyer and from a subject who claimed to be part of the official’s legal team, after he showed up on Friday at the news site’s headquarters to make new threats.
The threats stem from a news feature in which SinEmbargo used several pictures posted by Rubalcava Suárez showing several members of the PVEM party (Green Ecologist Party) in situations which depict them as anything but concerned with the environment.

Adrián Ruvalcaba (Via SinEmbargo)
Unyielding, SinEmbargo published on Saturday a picture of Rubalcava Suárez in which he is wearing a special armed forces uniform whilst posing as if he’s ready to open fire with an automatic weapon.
SinEmbargo said that a decision was made to maintain the photos on-line citing the support of the rights organisation Article19, which claimed that Rubalcava Suárez’ decision to ‘voluntarily place himself in the sphere of public debate binds him to more demanding public scrutiny’.
The right to be forgotten debate in Europe has largely centred on the human rights of individuals to expect that search engines like Google remove on-line content that is damaging to their reputation, as well as on its implications for the right to freedom of expression.
The matter in Mexico, however, has more serious implications in one of the world’s 15 most dangerous countries for journalists. After all Mexico is a country where, as put by the Committee to Protect Journalists, ‘journalists are slain and the killers go free’.
The international human rights organisation Article19 called on Mexico’s FEADLE, attached to the country’s PGR (Attorney General Office), to investigate the threats made to SinEmbargo.
The government of Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico’s president, has in recent weeks been under pressure at home and abroad, following the disappearance of 43 students and the killing of six in the city of Iguala, with the alleged participation of local politicians and the police.
The link between Rubalcava Suárez, (a member of Peña Nieto’s political party PRI), and a threat of violence against a news organisation, does little to alleviate the image of Peña Nieto´s government as one that has focused on economic reforms at the expense of law and order, as put by The Economist in a recent article. 
Rubalcava Suárez, who was elected in 2012 to run Cuajimalpa on his ticket as a candidate for the coalition that includes his official party PRI and the PVEM, attracted negative publicity for his party and for the government of Peña Nieto, after he posted a picture of himself with similarities to Peña Nieto’s presidential image.

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