Sanjuana Martínez Montemayor is a Mexican journalist born on 1963 in Monterrey, Nuevo León, México, who writes for Proceso magazine and for La Jornada newspaper. She studied at the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León in Nuevo León, Mexico. Martínez did graduate studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She has investigated issues related to human rights, gender violence, terrorist activity, and organized crime in Mexico, in the United States, and in Europe. She has worked for Diario de Monterrey, Canal 2 de Monterrey, Proceso magazine. She worked for Proceso magazine as a correspondent to Madrid for 18 years. Martínez has studied and reported on the migratory phenomena of Europe and North Africa. She toured the Mexico–United States border to report on the details of the daily toils of Mexican migrants. As a correspondent she covered the various crises of the Catholic Church and delved into pedophile crimes committed by the clergy. She investigated the case of priest Nicolás Aguilar Rivera, who was accused of abusing several children in Mexico and in the United States. For her work Martínez has won several awards including the Mexican National Journalism Award in 2006 and the Ortega y Gasset Award in 2008. In 2006, Martínez received death threats after publishing her book El manto púrpura which focuses on a boy who was allegedly sexually abused by Mexican priest Nicolás Aguilar. On July 5, 2012 she was arrested and detained for 24 hours due to a civil custody dispute. The Committee to Protect Journalists denounced the arrest saying that "the judge who ordered the detention was the subject of critical reporting by Martínez in 2008." Reporters Without Borders described the arrest as abuse of authority because she was detained by armed police, which is unusual in a civil case.
Books
Co-authored books
Voces de Babel Editorial Alfaguara
De los cuates pa' la raza. Editorial Para Leer en Libertad.
Antología 3 años leyendo en libertad
Awards and honors
National Journalism Award 2006
First National Journalism Prize 2007 awarded by the Journalists Club of Mexico
Ortega y Gasset Prize awarded by the newspaper El País for "Best Research Paper" version 25 of the Ortega y Gasset Prize for Journalism
Rodolfo Walsh Award at the 2008 Semana Negra Festival in Gijón, Spain, for best work of nonfiction with her book Prueba de la fe, la red de cardenales y obispos en la pederastia clerical.
Recognition given by the Feminist Alliance of Nuevo León on the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights "for her prominent role as a journalist to denounce and defend the most vulnerable of society such as children, girls and women."
National Journalism Award José Pagés Llergo in the category of Human Rights
Finalist for the New Journalism Prize by the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation with the report "El Vallenato de Los Tapados" published in Gatopardo magazine
Omecihuatl Medal 2011 for her outstanding commitment to the rights of women and for her contribution to building a more just and democratic society.
National Journalism Award 2011 awarded by the Journalists Club of Mexico, in the category of national interest work by spreading investigative reporting.
Rodolfo Walsh Prize for her book La Frontera del Narco at the Semana Negra of Gijón 2012.
Controversies
Sanjuana Martínez has been accused of wrongful termination, nepotism, and harassment during her first year as the head of the official Mexican news agency Notimex
