Lydia Cacho

Lydia Cacho Ribeiro (born Mexico City, 12 April 1963) is a Mexican journalist and feminist and human rights activist. She is a member of the Red Internacional de Periodistas con Visión de Género.

Biography

Lydia Cacho Ribeiro was born to a mother of Portuguese and French origin who moved from France to Mexico during World War II and then married a military mechanical engineer. Cacho herself met a foreigner and then settled in Cancún, Quintana Roo, in 1985. She began working for the cultural section of the newspaper "Novedades de Cancún" and a decade later wrote articles about the prostitution of Cuban and Argentine girls in the city. In 2003, Cacho wrote articles on the sexual abuse of minors for the newspaper "Por Esto" including a note on a girl abused by a local hotel owner. ("A bote pronto: Lydia Cacho, periodista", Life & Style, November 2006, #27).

Los Demonios del Edén

Cacho then wrote the book "Los Demonios del Edén" (Demons of Eden) in which she accuses Jean Succar Kuri of being involved in a ring of child pornography and prostitution, based on official statements from his alleged victims and even a video of him (filmed with hidden camera). The book mentions important politicians as Emilio Gamboa Patrón and Miguel Ángel Yunes as involved, and mentioned Kamel Nacif Borge, a Puebla businessman, of protecting Succar Kuri.

Nacif Borge sued Cacho for defamation in Puebla, and a group of policemen of the state illegally arrested her in Quintana Roo and extradited her from one state to another. She said she didn't know the reason for her arrest since she hadn't received a subpoena before. She paid a fine and was freed.

On February 14, 2006, several telephone conversations between Nacif Borge and Mario Marín, governor of the state of Puebla, were revealed by the Mexico City daily "La Jornada", creating a media frenzy. In these conversations, before Cacho's arrest, Marín and Nacif Borge discussed putting Cacho in jail as a favour, and having her beaten and abused while in jail to silence her. [ [http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/02/14/005n1pol.php 'Mi gober, tú eres el héroe': Kamel Nacif a Mario Marín] "La Jornada,", 14 February 2006] [ [http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/330852.html Exige PRD renuncia a gobernador por caso Lidia Cacho] "El Universal," 14 February 2006]

On 29 November 2007, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 4 that Marín had no case to answer in Cacho's arrest, jailing and harassment, [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/world/americas/30mexico.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin Mexican Court Finds No Violation of Rights in Jailing of Journalist] , "New York Times," 30 November 2007.] after which the United Nations Human Rights Council advised her to leave the country and offered her political asylum, legal assistance, and access to international courts. [ [http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/67544.html ONU aconseja a Cacho dejar México] "El Universal", 16 February 2008.] [ [http://www.proceso.com.mx/noticia.html?sec=1&nta=57202&nsec=Nacional Revela Lydia Cacho: La ONU le recomendó abandonar el país] ]

While being held, Cacho was granted the Premio Francisco Ojeda al Valor Periodístico (Francisco Ojeda Award for Journalistic Courage). [ [http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/02/14/005n2pol.php Premio al valor periodístico para Lydia Cacho ] ]

By May 2006, Cacho had taken the cause of the unsolved murders in Ciudad Juárez as a call to action against impunity of abuse of women in Mexico. What is an ongoing horror abroad, the chronic discovery of murdered women whose corpses are discovered in repeated patterns of abuse, rape, mutilation and are discarded as offal in pathetic scenes in the desert and urban surroundings of Ciudad Juárez. Young women from factories are said to be helpless in their need for public transportation. This is a common pattern for these women's deaths.

She received the 2007 Amnesty International Ginetta Sagan Award for Women and Children's Rights [ [http://www.amnestyusa.org/ginettasaganfund/recipient.html 2007 Recipient of the Ginetta Sagan Award ] ] and, in 2008, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. [ [http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=26413&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html 2008 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize awarded to Mexican reporter Lydia Cacho Ribeiro] , UNESCO, 9 April 2008.]

ee also

*Human rights in Mexico
*Jean Succar Kuri
*Kamel Nacif Borge

Publications

*"Los Demonios del Edén" (2005) Paperback: 224 p. Grijalbo Mondadori, ISBN 968-5957-58-4. México.

External links

* [http://www.lydiacacho.net Lydia Cacho's Blog]
*" [http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2007/05/cacho.html Mexico's Most Wanted Journalist] ," an interview with Lydia Cacho at MotherJones.com, May 1, 2007
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/international/americas/20cacho.html?_r=1&oref=slogin "Defamation Case Raises Issues of Fairness in Mexico"] "The New York Times" February 20, 2006
* [http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/72265/ Suspected plot to silence Cacho revealed] - IFEX
* [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16012 Reporters Without Borders' English-language chronology of the case]
* [http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/index.php?pid=33&aid=421 International PEN's report on Cacho Ribeiro's December 2005 arrest (English)]
* [http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/133689.html An article on her being held by police in what may be an attempt to stop her from accusing important people in Mexico]
* [http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/02/14/003n1pol.php Article from La Jornada with transcriptions of some of Nacif's conversations with his associate Hanna Nakad Bayeh; includes Lydia Cacho's account of how she narrowly avoided a planned sexual assault while in custody]
* [http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2007/05/cacho.html Interview with "Mother Jones"] , May 2007
* [http://www.citymayors.com/politics/puebla_case.html CityMayors story]

References