Mexico

Miguel Ángel López Velasco, an editor and columnist with the local online daily Notiver, was shot dead along with his wife and his son in their home in the east coast city of Veracruz early June 20, just seven days after a reporter was found murdered in the northwestern state of Sonora, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “The violence against journalists in...

Reporter Pablo Ruelas Barraza was found shot to death in Huatabampo (Sonora state, northwest Mexico) on June 13, apparently executed by two gunmen who tried first to abduct him. Ruelas, 38, worked for regional dailies Diario del Yaqui in Huatabampo and El Regional de Sonora in Hermosillo. The past month has been grim for the country’s journalists. Local media said Ruelas Barraza, a general...

Marco Antonio López Ortiz, the news editor of Novedades Acapulco, a daily based in the resort city of Acapulco (in the southwestern state of Guerrero), has been missing since 11:30 p.m. on June 7, when he was abducted by several individuals as he went to meet a woman friend in a bar, according to reports June 9 on the websites of his newspaper and El Sur, another local paper. Colleagues from...

The body of Noel López Olguín, a local journalist based in the eastern state of Veracruz who had been missing since March 8, was found near Jáltipan, on June 1, four days after Alejandro Castro Chirinos, also known as “El Dragón,” was captured in the nearby city of Coatzacoalcos and confessed to participating in his murder. Police said Castro, who was caught in possession of López’s camera, told...

Provincial journalist Jesús Lemus Barajas was released on May 11. The founder and publisher of El Tiempo, a local newspaper in Piedad, in the southwestern Mexican state of Michoacán, and a former correspondent of the national daily La Jornada, Lemus was arrested on absolutely baseless drug trafficking charges on May 7, 2008 while investigating drug cartel activity in Cuerámaro, in the neighbouring...

A total of 68 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, while another 13 remain missing, says a new report by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), El Universal reports. In addition, the CNDH report catalogs 21 attacks on media facilities and says that since 2005, the organization has received 473 general grievance complaints from journalists and human rights defenders...

Organised crime seems to have been responsible for the murders of two journalists on March 25 in Monterrey, in Mexico's northern state of Nuevo León – José Luis Cerda Meléndez, 33, a programme host on the national TV channel Televisa, and Luis Emanuel Ruíz Carrillo, 20, a reporter for La Prensa, a daily based in the neighbouring state of Coahuila, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans...

Many of Mexico's leading news organisations have agreed common guidelines on how to cover drug-related violence. Newspapers and broadcasters agreed not to glorify drug traffickers or publish cartel propaganda. They also promised joint action to protect journalists, at least 20 of whom have been killed since 2006, according to BBC News. Excerpts: [ Link] The accord defends the media's right to...

Noel López Olguín, a journalist based in Mexico's eastern state of Veracruz, has been missing for the past two and a half weeks., according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). López works for local weeklies Horizonte and Noticias de Acayucan and the daily La Verdad. Gerardo Perdomo, the head of the Veracruz State Commission for the Defence of Journalists, told the...

Altogether 139 journalists and 21 media outlets in Mexico suffered violence related to their work in 2010, a year in which violence against them media grew and drug traffickers were not the only perpetrators, says the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET) in its annual report. The document reports that nine media workers were killed, three more disappeared, and two fled the country after