They come after your family, too

I’ve been writing about authoritarian regimes and how they make use of the institutions of civil society and people’s love for their family and friends in their efforts to terrorize and dominate the citizenry. I’ve mentioned Corey Robin’s general argument and the specific case of Pussy Riot. Here’s another example of courage in the face of such systems – Honduran journalist Dina Meza:

Far from ending with those bullets [that killed her friend and colleague on his way to a meeting with her], the harassment quickly turned its focus on her and has rarely ceased since.

First it was the most unsubtle of verbal threats. The owner of a security firm she was investigating phoned her saying: “Stop your work or I will destroy your organisation.” She had the call taped and passed it on to the Attorney General, who did nothing.

Then an employee of the security company phoned to tell her what a “lovely looking daughter she had”. It was clearly meant, she claims, in a sexually threatening way towards the 13 year old. The caller made it clear that her children were being followed at school and college.

Instead of keeping quiet, she tracked the man down to confront him. But he was shameless, telling her to her face: “Watch out, or I can’t be held responsible for what might happen to your daughter.”

Since February of last year she received phone calls and text messages with disgustingly graphic sexual threats against her. Her harassers phoned her landline at home repeatedly in the middle of the night. “It would click and go dead, click and go dead. Eventually I stopped picking up,” she says, chuckling again. “So they would call my mobile and play funeral music, or make more horrible threats of a sexual nature against me.”

She has no idea which of the organisations her journalism is exposing is making the threats at any one time: the police, security firms, abusive employers. Although she passes on her suspicions to the police, along with the phone numbers of the abusive callers, nothing is ever done about it, she claims.

She recalls a host of other threats and abuses – too many to document here – always accompanying her tales with a laugh or a joke. But when I ask about the harassment of her children, her exuberant voice quietens markedly and breaks with emotion. Children, spouses, friends, are all seen as fair game by those seeking to silence journalists in her country.

…The lives of her daughter and two sons, 22, 19 and 13 respectively, have been badly affected by the constant danger of having such a high profile campaigning mother. They can never travel alone, never go to public places or live a normal private life. They have to keep in constant mobile phone contact with their mother in case of kidnap.

…I ask her whether, for all that she and her family have been through over the decades, she would ever consider just giving up. Living a quiet life.

That laugh comes again: “Never! The worst thing I could possibly do is nothing. We are going to keep struggling.”

“I could not look into my children´s eyes and tell them I can do nothing about the situation, because to do nothing would be far worse than the threats, beatings or bullets of the police and militaries”.