The story is well known: on Christmas Day 1170, in his castle in Normandy, King Henry II, enraged by the excommunications issued by Archbishop Thomas Becket against several bishops loyal to him, exclaimed: “Is there no one who can help me?” from this boring priest? Hearing this, four nobles traveled to Canterbury and killed Becket. When the scandal broke, the king claimed that he never issued the order, that it was all a misunderstanding.

A similar staging of the same story is now taking place in Mexico. From the National Palace, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (who, if not absolute power, seems to aspire to it), furious with his critics (almost all journalists, writers, intellectuals), usually addresses them by first and last name, expressions that would could be “misinterpreted”. But he didn’t do it once: he did it countless times, in front of millions of people.

The work is called “La mañanera” and premiered on December 3, 2018. Every morning from 7 to 10 a.m., five days a week, the president simulates a press conference attended by a small number of independent journalists, who are rarely allowed to speak . As for the spokesperson of the Presidency, his main job is to prepare questions and distribute them to the unconditional media. Who speaks is the president.

One of AMLO’s specialties is attack ad hominem. Five years ago, the writer Gabriel Zaid made a list of AMLO’s insults against anyone he despises or seeks to discredit. By then the list had reached eighty, but now there must be many more.

López Obrador also commits slander and libel. Anyone who criticizes him is part of a conspiracy to oust him from power. All those who criticize him are corrupt who are guided only by material interest, have dishonestly acquired money or want to have it. The president incites lynching, for example, when he calls his critics “enemies of the people” and exposes their personal information (tax documents, real estate, photos, videos) in order to reveal their economic level, whose origin he necessarily presents as something vague, ineffable.

In the group of critics he considers “enemies”, I am one of the most attacked. To date, he has quoted me 298 times with insults, slander and defamation. Although AMLO is fully aware of my criticism of each of the Mexican governments from 1970 to the present (profusely documented in books, essays, articles, videos), he accused me of selling out to those governments and now conspiring to bring them back.

López Obrador’s outrage stems from the publication of my essay “Tropical Messiah” a month before the 2006 election (which he lost by a margin of 0.58%). he accused me of “strategize” defeat him; from “You’re asking Biden to step in and scold him” and thus favor the appointment of the United States ambassador (he proposed that it should be me) who plans a coup d’état and assassinates him; from “they want people to be suppressed”; make a “huge damage to Mexico”. He recently called on the public to help him find out where i live show that research in the media.

The president claims that he is only exercising his legitimate right to freedom of expression with his attacks. Mexican jurisprudence provides that public figures are subject to greater surveillance than private citizens. This supervision can be harsh, aggressive, even abusive. And the threshold of tolerance before him must be directly proportional to his relevance in public life. For this reason, as public figures, all of us pesky critics of López Obrador are subject to such treatment.

But the law was made to protect free speech, not for the government to stifle it. AMLO attacks his critics personally from the headquarters of the executive power, and for this he uses public funds. Their messages and attacks are fully spread on television and official media, which multiply exponentially on social networks. The persecution carried out by AMLO seeks to prevent freedom.

Are there legal ways to resolve this? In theory, yes. In practice, no. One of the hallmarks of the Mexican constitution is the so-called Juicio de Amparo, which protects individuals from abuse of government powers. Referring to that figure, the injured party could invoke the violation of various human rights protected by the Constitution, such as the right to a fair trial and judicial guarantees, the presumption of innocence, the right to privacy or private life, honor and reputation, to freedom of expression, the right to dissemination of ideas, right to reply. We could even expect compensation for the moral damage caused to us.

But the president does not respect the protection.

Victims could turn to the National Human Rights Commission in Mexico and then appeal, where appropriate, to international bodies that could provide some form of protection. But in practice, the Mexican CNDH is completely subordinate to the government. And even if an international organization gave a positive opinion, the president would not listen to it either.

In front of the eyes of the world, AMLO seeks to destroy Mexico’s electoral system and set us on the familiar path of a one-party, one-man state. In order to put an end to democracy, freedom is hindered. We pesky critics are determined to point that out.

López Obrador said that watching the news of journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva could produce “brain tumor” (December 14, 2022). The next day, Gómez Leyva suffered an attack. The intellectual authors of the attack have not been discovered, and in all likelihood they never will be. president stated that “it could have been a ‘self-attack’, not because he invented it, but because someone did it to influence us …”

It may only be a matter of time before one of López Obrador’s critics is killed. At which point the president will say that it was a plot to depose him or, like Henry II, that it was just a “misunderstanding”. (OR)