The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on President Felipe Calderón and Congressional leaders to implement the following:Wherever current law allows, assign to the federal attorney general investigative control of the cases of seven journalists who have disappeared since 2005. Reactivate those cases that are dormant. Ensure the attorney general’s office does everything in its power…
New York, September 25, 2008–Mexican radio host Alejandro Zenón Fonseca Estrada was gunned down Tuesday as he was putting up anticrime posters in Villahermosa, capital of the Gulf Coast state of Tabasco. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating possible links between Fonseca’s work as a journalist and his killing. Four unidentified men riding in…
In Mexico, where violence against the press has become an epidemic, a debate is raging about what should be done to confront this terrible problem. Since 2000, 21 journalists have been killed, seven of them in direct reprisal for their work. The record of violence has produced widespread self-censorship, particularly among regional journalists covering drug…
Emilio Gutiérrez Soto began fearing for his life when approximately 50 armed soldiers entered his home in Ascensión on May 5 without a permit. They told Gutiérrez they were searching for “weapons or drugs,” he told CPJ. The soldiers did not find any evidence of illegal activity and left. Gutiérrez said he believed the search…
While organized criminals and drug traffickers account for the bulk of attacks against Mexican journalists, CPJ has documented an increasing number of assaults committed by security forces. Just last week, this reality was brought into sharp focus with the accusation by a reporter that he had been roughed up by the military.
New York, June 23, 2008—Two unidentified men beat and stabbed Luis Pablo Guardado Negrete, deputy director of the local daily Noticias de la Bahía, on Saturday afternoon inside his office in the western Mexican state of Nayarit. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the local authorities to investigate the attack and bring all those…
JUNE 14, 2008 Posted July 14, 2008 Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, El Diario del Noroeste THREATENED, HARASSEDGutiérrez, correspondent for the Ciudad Juárez-based daily El Diario del Noroeste in the city of Ascensión, left his home in the northern state of Chihuahua following harassment and alleged threats from members of the Mexican army.