‘Echar raíces’ – to put down roots. That’s exactly what a threatened Mexican journalist did since fleeing to Surrey with her family. In this VO exclusive, Karla Berenice García Ramírez — pen name Lottini –tells the story of her fight to stay.
David P. Ball Posted: Jan 19th, 2012 Vancouver Observer

When she first received a death threat for exposing Mexico’s government corruption, award-winning journalist Karla Lottini’s first thought was to protect her family. “’How are are you, my queen?’” she recounts her assailant saying in 2003. “’If you don’t stop writing about this, your body could end up being in an empty lot – or even worse, someone in your family.’ “I think it’s worse if you have daughters in your family. I’m not afraid if someone cuts my head off – I got a call in 2008, saying I would have my arms cut off. But my daughters…” The 38-year-old journalist and Vancouver radio broadcaster – who lives in Surrey with her husband César Casso and two small children – invited the Vancouver Observer into her home for an exclusive interview.

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CBC News Posted: Jan 19, 2012 9:13 PM PT

A Mexican journalist is fighting to stay in Canada says she is worried about the safety of her family and herself if she’s deported. Karla Ramirez fled from Mexico to B.C. in 2008 after trying to uncover suspected corruption inside the Mexican government’s cultural affairs department, and she has written a book about what she discovered in her investigation. Ramirez, 38, says she and her family have been threatened and claims powerful officials in the Mexican government are trying to silence her.

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By Yolande Cole, January 19, 2012, Georgia Straight

A Mexican journalist facing deportation from Canada says she fears for the safety of herself and her family if she’s forced to return to her home country. Karla Berenice Garcίa Ramίrez fled to Canada with her husband in 2008 after she received death threats for going public with allegations of corruption within the Mexican government ministry of the National Council for Culture and Arts. Since she published a book in March 2011 detailing corruption she’d uncovered while working for the ministry, Ramίrez and family members in Mexico have received increased death threats.

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Award-winning Mexican journalist and now whistleblower Karla Berenice García Ramírez, who writes under the penname Karla Lottini, fears for the safety of herself and her family as she awaits deportation orders. The calls for Karla  and her family to remain in Canada have grown. Below are excerpts from just some of the dozens of people who have written in support of Karla and her family.

Manuela Valle, a UBC Liu Institute Scholar:
“Karla Lottini is an amazingly brave woman, journalist, and mother who is facing deportation back to Mexico. She has been denied political asylum despite the death threats she has received after the publication of her book. The support from Canadians to her case is absolutely critical to protect her and her family from an increasingly violent and deadly climate of censorship in Mexico.”

Alexander Dawson, Director Latin American Studies at SFU:
“Vendettas that are unrelated to the drug war are often carried out with complete impunity under its cover. This is why I believe that Karla Berenice Garcia Ramirez’s claim is credible. It is my hope that the Canadian government begin to adopt a posture that reflects the serious nature of these crises, and acts in a less restrictive manner in these types of refugee claims.”

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Stephanie Law, Globe and Mail Monday, Jan. 16, 2012 8:53PM EST

Mexican journalist Karla Berenice García Ramírez, her husband and her two young Canadian-born daughters, are fighting deportation from Canada – and, as they see it, for their lives. She and her husband fled to Canada from Mexico in 2008 after she and her family received death threats that had escalated from less threatening intimidation starting in 2003, the apparent result of her efforts to uncover corruption at a government ministry. She was working at the ministry at the time, but had previously been employed as a journalist.

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