Reporter who criticized officials is slain in northern Mexico
New York, May 5, 2009–A Mexican journalist who was critical of local authorities in the northern state of Durango was fatally shot by unidentified assailants on Sunday. In a piece published a day before the killing, the reporter wrote that he had been threatened by local government officials. The Committee to Protect Journalists today called…
Mexico should federalize crimes against free expression
New York, April 6, 2009–The Mexican Congress must move expeditiously to approve a constitutional reform granting federal authorities jurisdiction over crimes against free expression, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, approved a measure last week imposing penalties for crimes against “journalistic activity,” an encouraging but still preliminary…
Newseum honors fallen colleagues
After each name was read aloud, the ring of a bell resonated through the studio auditorium that included many relatives, friends, and colleagues of the journalists whose names were being added to the Newseum Journalists Memorial. Some, like Tom Borrelli of The Buffalo News, died unexpectedly; Borrelli fell while climbing steep stairs on his way…
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.
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…
Monterrey attack a reminder of reporting dangers
The aftermath of the January 6 attack on the Televisa studios in Monterrey, a city that until recently was considered one of the safest in Latin America, has generated great interest locally in how the media is protecting itself. As part of the coverage, headlines in the Mexican media this morning said that journalists reporting for the…