Mexico: Legal harassment of journalist Carmen Olsen continues with a defamation case

September 17, 2020, Mexico City, Mexico -- Carmen Olsen, a journalist in Baja California State who investigates acts of corruption committed by the police chief of Rosarito, a town located just 25 km from the U.S. border was harassed by municipal police officers as she tried to take pictures of an unlawful arrest in January 2013. Policemen bruised Carmen severely as they tried to drag her out of her car. She managed to stay in the car, but then policemen had it towed away, and paraded through the center of the city, while she was still in it. Carmen Olsen was detained for three hours, illegally, as there were no charges to arrest her on.

Carmen Olsen is now charged with a 6-month prison sentence for alleged offenses made to municipal policemen in 2013.

Carmen, who was only doing her journalistic work, was arbitrarily detained by the municipal elements, who denounced her for the crime of “outrages to authority” claiming that Carmen “offended them” during the arrest. The Joint Court of First Instance in Rosarito, Baja California, taking these claims into account ruled on August 31 that she is sentenced to six months in prison for the crime of “outrages to authority”.

The Coalition For Women In Journalism is utterly dismayed by this arbitrary decision which seems to be in retaliation to Carmen speaking out against her unlawful detention in 2013. In the statements she gave to the press back in 2013, “They tried to humiliate me, and intimidate me, by parading my car through the streets,” Carmen said. “El Chapo Guzman got better treatment than I did when he was arrested.”

Following her release from detention she also started travelling around town with a body guard, and has stopped covering events like arrests and murder sites. Carmen has also drastically toned down coverage of police abuses and crimes in Rosarito on her website which is a stellar example of self-censorship that legal harassment pushes journalists to. 

The Coalition For Women In Journalism deems this decision as a serious setback against freedom of expression in Mexico. We have documented eight severe cases of threats against women journalists the first half of this year, including two murders. Judicial apparatus shall not be used to silence freedom of the press. We call upon authorities to ensure freedom of the press in the country and that Carmen is acquitted of the charges against her and instead those who are responsible for censoring her and subjecting her to violence are effectively sanctioned.