Miroslava Breach facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Miroslava Breach Velducea
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Homage erected to the memory of Miroslava Breach days after her assassination.
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| Born | 7 August 1962 Chínipas de Almada, Chihuahua, Mexico
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| Died | 23 March 2017 (aged 54) Chihuahua City, Chihuahua, Mexico
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| Nationality | Mexican |
| Education | Autonomous University of Baja California Sur (Political science) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Years active | 1987–2017 |
| Employer | La Jornada |
| Known for | Investigative reporting on crime and corruption |
| Awards | Don Bolles Medal |
Miroslava Breach Velducea (7 August 1962 – 23 March 2017) was a Mexican investigative journalist for La Jornada and Norte de Juárez in Chihuahua City, Mexico known for her reportage of human rights violations and government corruption. She was murdered on 23 March 2017 as she was leaving her home. She was one of six journalists killed in Mexico in 2017.
At the time of her death, Breach was a correspondent for La Jornada, a collaborator for El Norte de Chihuahua newspaper, and the editorial director of El Norte de Ciudad Juárez. She was a single mother of 2 children.
Personal
Miroslava Breach Velducea was born on 7 August 1962 in Chínipas in the Sierra Tarahumara region of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. She attended grade school in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, and junior high and high school in Navojoa, Sonora. Breach's father died when she was young, and she was raised by her siblings and single mother. After high school, she moved to La Paz, Baja California Sur and enrolled at the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur. She first studied biological sciences for two years, after which she transferred to the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration. She graduated in 1987.
Career
After graduation, Breach worked for two local newspapers in Los Cabos. Between 1989 and 1992, she was director of Social Communication of the Municipality of Los Cabos. At the age of 34, Breach left Los Cabos and relocated to Chihuahua City with her daughter Andrea following a failed marriage. There, she worked for El Heraldo de Chihuahua, El Diario de Chihuahua, El Norte de Ciudad Juárez, and then became a correspondent for the newspaper La Jornada in May 1997. She founded the MIR news agency.
On 4 March 2016, La Jornada published a piece by Breach that exposed that cartel members had infiltrated mayoral candidate lists for the Institutional Revolutionary and National Action parties in rural, mountainous areas of Chihuahua.
Breach investigated issues such as human rights violations and illegal logging in Rarámuri communities in the Sierra Tarahumara region; environmental damage in the region; female homicides in Ciudad Juárez; the murder of Marisela Escobedo Ortiz; and forced disappearances in Chihuahua. She also exposed the extensive corruption in the government of former Governor of Chihuahua César Duarte Jáquez. On 5 November 2016, she announced that in six years of government, Duarte had operated a private network of friends and family that embezzled 900 million pesos. Affronted, Mexican President Peña Nieto pledged to send Duarte to prison.
One of Breach's most important exposures was that of the Mexican Attorney General's investigation into the existence of clandestine graves being used in El Largo Maderal. Her research revealed that Sergio Almaráz Ortiz, Secretary of Public Safety in Ciudad Juárez, had failed the security tests from the National Public Security System; this later led to his removal from office. A 5 June 2016 article by Breach stated that members of organized crime were attempting to enter politics, notably through the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and National Action Party (PAN).
During the presidency of Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), Breach documented the escalating violence in Chihuahua as it became a battleground between the Sinaloa and Juárez Cartels. Beginning in August 2016, she reported on the displacement of indigenous peoples in Chihuahua by organized crime, namely by a group called "Los Salazares" that she believed was also tied to illegal logging. As a result of her work, Breach and her family received death threats.
Death
On 23 March 2017 at 7:06 a.m. CST, Breach was killed by a gunman at the intersection of Rio Aros and José María Mata as she drove her Renault Duster SUV away from her home in the Granjas neighborhood, Chihuahua City to take her 14-year-old son to school.
Impact
The Miroslava Breach Award was established in 2017 by several educational institutions, as well as journals and newspapers, in Breach's honor for Latin American or Caribbean journalists who publish about violence and education or journalism.
In Chihuahua City, friends and relatives of Breach as well as other journalists and their friends and family are to gather to demand justice for Breach, beginning at 07:00 CST 22 March 2018 at the Quinta Gameros. The next day, the one-year anniversary of Breach's murder, they will reconvene at Hidalgo Plaza's Cruz de Clavos in front of the Palace of the State Governor, and then finish on the 24th with a research seminar at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua named in honor of Breach.
Miroslava's work has been continued by Forbidden Stories.
See also
- Javier Valdez Cárdenas
