Emmanuelle Steels is a correspondent for several French media in Mexico. She has been receiving messages of intimidation for three months, that is to say since the posting of a documentary series on Netflix, where she is interviewed. This documentary series is dedicated to the Florence Cassez case. A case on which she investigated at length between 2009 and 2015.
Emmanuelle Steels interviewed at length for the Netflix documentary series
Florence Cassez, a Frenchwoman, was the victim of a plot in Mexico. She was accused of being part of a kidnapping gang and was finally released after seven years in prison. Emmanuelle Steels has turned her investigation into a book, This is not a kidnapping, published by Fauves. She tells there what is in fact a case of corruption, a judicial machination mounted from scratch by the Mexican authorities, with the complicity of a businessman who wanted revenge on the brother of Florence Cassez. She reveals the involvement of several people, including some in high places. And her expertise on the subject therefore earned her a long interview in the Netflix documentary series Named guilty.
The journalist filed a complaint in Mexico
At the microphone of Culture Media, she recounts the increasingly threatening messages of intimidation she receives. “Initially it was insults and then it became messages: ‘I hope you will be kidnapped’. Then it moved on to messages that showed that this person, the author of this Twitter account, knew my movements in real time and was actually shadowing me. And then this person sent videos to a fellow journalist I had worked with. She sent her videos of me walking in the street, videos at a cafe terrace to show that indeed she was following me”, she explains.
She filed a complaint in Mexico with the prosecutor’s office specializing in crimes against freedom of expression. It is he who deals precisely with cases journalists targeted by threats. She benefits from protective measures provided for journalists in Mexico. And, she hopes that the authorities will investigate the person concerned.
Everything she reveals was already in her book, published in 2015. So why is she being bullied now? According to her, it’s the Netflix effect. “It’s the fact that my work is exhibited on a much larger scale and reaches a much larger audience”, she underlines on Europe 1. “My book was released in 2015 in Mexico. I wrote it in Spanish and it is a book that had a relatively great impact, but in the narrow circles of those who were very interested in this case, whether journalists or lawyers, for example. , because of the Netflix series, my book finds itself in the spotlight and reaches a much larger audience”, concludes Emmanuelle Steels.
