Punished for Tweeting: X, in the Dock of the Mexican Electoral Tribunal

It was not the tweet of her life. Laisha Wilkins, actress, influencer, and television host, did that night what she does dozens of times a day for the past decade: express her opinion on social media. On May 19, during the campaign for the judicial election, she saw a post from Aristegui Noticias about a candidate for the Supreme Court, Dora Martínez, who had attempted to withdraw some reports by accusing them of committing political gender violence. The headline of the article and the tweet read: “Dora the Censor: candidate for minister of the SCJN tried to censor investigations from Televisa Leaks.” “I laughed at the title of the post because it was very amusing given everything that was happening,” Wilkins explains over the phone, adding her comment: “Haha, Dora the Censor haha.” This post has now earned her a request from the Electoral Tribunal due to a complaint from the candidate—again—for political gender violence. The Mexican electoral body has initiated an investigation, located her home, and demanded information about the post. It wasn’t the tweet of her life, but it has become, for now, the most controversial one.

The case of Laisha Wilkins is the latest example of a complex scenario for freedom of expression in Mexico. In recent weeks, at the proposal of Morena Governor Alejandro Armenta, the Congress of Puebla has approved a law that permits sentencing up to three years in prison for anyone who insults on social media, and the governor of Campeche, Layda Sansores, also from Morena, has reported retired journalist Jorge González, 72, for an anonymous article published in the newspaper he ran for 30 years, Tribuna. She demands a prison sentence and two million pesos. In the meantime, she has succeeded in disqualifying him and closing the newspaper.

Columnist Héctor de Mauleón, the media outlets Código Magenta, Al Calor Político, SinEmbargo.mx, and several of their directors and reporters have also been reported by political and judicial aspirants in Tamaulipas, Veracruz, and at the federal level. All were accused of political gender violence. This figure, born from the historical struggle of women, has become the new weapon of the political class against uncomfortable discourses. It not only affects journalists but also citizens like Karla Estrella, a housewife from Hermosillo (Sonora), who has been sanctioned for tweeting about Diana Karina Barreras, who was a candidate for federal deputy and is married to the president of the Chamber of Deputies, a high-ranking member of Morena.

Social media is filled with insults, stereotypes, and attacks, with comments that are homophobic, racist, and misogynistic. It is normal for a post about the Maya Train, judicial independence, or President Claudia Sheinbaum to end in conflict. Tensions run even higher during election periods. In that rough context, Karla Estrella tweeted: “This would be Sergio Gutiérrez Luna’s tantrum to include his wife, as they had to change the formulas to give her a candidacy. Zero evidence and zero doubts.” And that was it. But it was enough for the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary, which has sentenced her to publicly apologize for 30 days, pay a fine of 1,085 pesos (about 50 dollars), read specialized literature, attend gender courses, and remain registered for a year and a half in INE’s list of violators. Deputy Diana Barreras even requested more: that the apology be published in “two newspapers with the highest circulation.”

“It’s an excessive sanction; they are fining her for a tweet,” considers Feri Saud, an electoral lawyer, who believes Estrella may have even been a victim of institutional violence: “The courts and the deputy made a disproportionate and unfounded use of the sanctioning system in electoral matters to restrict the right to freedom of expression. This can be reported.”

At the heart of the discussion is the role of Mexican electoral bodies. The INE, which receives complaints and acts as the first filter, and the Electoral Tribunal, an entity that those who work there recognize has become politicized and has maintained a “punitive trend against freedom of expression” for years. Most of the judges in the upper court of the Electoral Tribunal have become loyal figures to the establishment and closed ranks in favor of judicial reform, meaning their positions did not go up for election. From there, they now also respond to issues affecting Morena members. “It was a more political than judicial decision,” laments Mariana Calderón, who, from the National Strategic Litigation Council, represents Karla Estrella and Laisha Wilkins: “The Electoral Tribunal is allowing uncomfortable messages to be silenced.”

A tool for women, used against women

In Mexico, where ten women are murdered daily, seven are raped, and 185 are assaulted, machismo permeates all layers of society. Their salaries continue to be lower, and their positions in companies more sidelined. Their entry into politics has also been fraught with thorns. To favor their arrival, a reform was approved in 2014 that mandated the parity of candidacies in Congress. However, the text hid the fact that parties did not nominate them even if it was in the law or that when they reached the position, they faced colleagues who obstructed their access to resources necessary to perform their duties. To protect their rights, six laws were amended in 2020 to create the figure of political violence based on gender.

“The first cases we had were indeed of politicians and officials trying to access positions, but their male peers were preventing them from exercising or attempting to obstruct their work,” explains someone who has worked in the Electoral Tribunal for six years: “It was a very noble figure.” This protected, for example, Deputy Tania Ramírez, to whom her own party colleague, José Casas, said in a session in the Morelos Congress: “Comrades, why get into this (…) That’s the downside of pulling people out of the kitchen and giving them a seat.” Or the election was annulled in Iliatenco, Guerrero, in 2021, which the Movimiento Ciudadanos candidate lost by 50 votes because the massive appearance of graffiti and banners stating “it’s time for men,” “no more women in power,” “women don’t know how to govern” had affected the election results.

However, there came a moment when the nature of the cases changed. “Political actors realized it was a wonderful tool to silence social media opinions they didn’t like,” points out lawyer Mariana Calderón. The two sources from the Electoral Tribunal consulted by this newspaper agree that these complaints “have grown significantly in recent years” and now rank “in the top 5 of the most frequently seen issues,” and that “more comments from journalists and social media messages have been coming from this subuniverse.” The organization defending freedom of expression, Article 19, points out that nearly 30% of the judicial proceedings opened in 2024 against journalists were due to this figure.

The complaint for political gender violence was the one that Morena member Catalina Monreal used to try to nullify Alessandra Rojo de la Vega’s victory in the Cuauhtémoc mayoralty last year. She claimed that mentions of her father, Ricardo Monreal, made her invisible. The federal Electoral Tribunal ultimately dismissed the complaint, similar to that of the deputy from Sonora. “It seems that the criteria change from session to session. There is an internal perception within the institution that it changes based on what suits them,” points out a source from the Electoral Tribunal, “also because the line is very thin, and the participation of women in politics is a sensitive issue.”

“Karla Estrella’s case seems very relevant to me because it sheds light on how the open assumptions in legislation can be used against women themselves,” emphasizes gender expert lawyer Feri Saud, who calls for maintaining a “proportionality between uncomfortable behaviors and illegal conduct”: “Not everything that makes us uncomfortable is a crime, nor is everything that bothers us violence. We must remember this, or this will rebound on us like a boomerang.”

Karla Estrella’s surprise

The team from the National Strategic Litigation Council was convinced that the complaint against Karla Estrella would not prosper. “In the review resource, we simply said she had not committed violence and asked the tribunal to change the precedents, firstly, because the model is created to sanction parties and public servants, and secondly, because you cannot impose that disproportionate burden on citizens, that just for expressing an opinion on Twitter, they have to seek a lawyer,” recounts Mariana Calderón. At that time, Karla Estrella had 6,044 followers and her tweet had been seen by 7,341 people. Her defense argued that the woman sought to “expose nepotism and the bad practices of political parties that include family members to generate concentrations of power,” not to affect Diana Barreras’ rights because she is a woman.

The surprise with the resolution of the Specialized Regional Chamber, which came on April 11, 2024, was total. “The reported tweet shows that Karla María Estrella Murrieta intended to provide unnecessary and stereotyped information that resulted in discrimination against the complainant, as it humiliated, degraded, and objectified her, affecting her dignity,” states the ruling, which lists six types of violence that Diana Barreras suffered. One of them, “analog violence,” doesn’t even exist in legislation, but the Electoral Tribunal claims the tweet may have “installed” in the deputy the syndromes of “the impostor, Cassandra, Lilly Reich,” and, ultimately, “undermine her self-confidence.”

“That has no basis. Moreover, there is no expert testimony in the ruling proving the deputy’s injuries. A concept is being used that stems from vicarious violence, the indirect violence of harming someone through another person, in this case, through her husband,” reflects Feri Saud, who has been working on these issues for ten years: “This is very serious; we’re trivializing concepts because when everything is violence, nothing is violence.”

On June 19, the Superior Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal confirmed the ruling of the Regional Chamber. Two of the judges (Reyes Rodríguez and Janine Otálora) were against it, but the vote of the presiding magistrate, Mónica Soto, resolved the tie. “This happens when you have politicized courts. On one side was a citizen without power and, on the other, the president of the Chamber of Deputies. So we should favor him, right?” notes Mariana Calderón.

Starting next week, on Karla Estrella’s account, it will read for 30 days as a reminder: “I apologize, Diana Barreras, for the message that was laden with symbolic, psychological violence, through a third party, digital, media, and analog, as well as discrimination based on gender stereotypes. This harmed your political-electoral rights because it minimized your capacities and political career.”