Going beyond national borders to combat impunity
Combating impunity has been a long and difficult process, full of obstacles and problems. At the national level it has not been easy, so much of our work is carried out using the supranational tools that we helped develop. They began taking shape through international intergovernmental declarations, in conclusions reached by international legislative and judicial…
Getting Away With Murder 2009
CPJ’s Impunity Index spotlights countrieswhere journalists are slain and killers go free New York, March 23, 2009 — The already murderous conditions for the press in Sri Lanka and Pakistan deteriorated further in the past year, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists…
Crime photographer shot dead, reporter injured in Mexico
New York, February 17, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists called today for a thorough investigation into a shooting of two journalists on Friday in Mexico. A gunman killed a photographer and injured a reporter in the southern city of Iguala, Guerrero state, according to international news reports.
Mexican journalists face ever-increasing danger
There is an often-repeated phrase among journalists: No story is worth dying for, we say. But journalists are dying in every region of the world. In Iraq, in Somalia, in Russia, in Bolivia, in the Philippines, journalists died last year while reporting the news in their countries.
Reporters crowd Zeta during Tijuana ‘Attacks’ launch
The border city of Tijuana, where drug-related violence left almost a thousand people dead in 2008, has had a strong military presence since the government of President Felipe Calderón deployed the Mexican army to fight powerful drug cartels. It can be felt in the streets. While we were driving to the Zeta offices, where we…
Attacks on the Press in 2008: Mexico
Powerful drug cartels and escalating violence made journalists in Mexico more vulnerable to attack than ever before. The dangerous climate was compounded by a pervasive culture of impunity. Most crimes against the press remained unsolved as Mexican law enforcement agencies, awash in corruption, did not aggressively investigate attacks. With no guarantee of safety, reporters increasingly…
A eulogy for Eloy Aguilar
Former Associated Press World Services Director Claude Erbsen gave a eulogy on Wednesday for former AP Mexico Bureau Chief Eloy Aguilar, left, who died on January 30 at the age of 72. Erbsen said there were about 100 people at the church memorial: “a mixed bag of foreign correspondents ranging from AP to Xinhua, with…
Remembering Eloy Aguilar
Being a foreign correspondent means living between two worlds. You are an outsider, a foreigner. But you are also insider, with unprecedented access to those in power. You become part of the country in which you live, participating in the culture and developing lasting friendships. And yet you are always apart, observing, commenting, translating, and…
Mexican reporter released from U.S. detention center
According to U.S. and Mexican news reports, reporter Emilio Gutiérrez Soto was released on Thursday from a detention center in El Paso, Texas, where he had been held for seven months while awaiting an immigration hearing. Gutiérrez illegally entered the United States in June fearing for his life and that of his son after receiving…