The body of Mexican journalist Víctor Manuel Báez Chino was
found yesterday near the main square in Xalapa, capital of Veracruz state, making him the fourth journalist to be killed in Veracruz in the past two months. A state spokeswoman has said officials received reports that three armed men abducted Báez on Wednesday night, she also indicated that an organised crime cartel was responsible. Báez covered the crime beat in the state capital.
A
Mexican reporter has
gone missing from her home in the state of Coahuila, along with her two-year-old son. Hypathia Stephanía Rodríguez Cardoso, crime reporter for Zócalo Saltillo newspaper, disappeared on Friday (8 June) after attending an event celebrating Freedom of Expression day. The journalist contacted colleagues around 2 AM Friday to tell them she had returned home safely, but did not turn up for work later that morning. According to relatives, her house had been ransacked. The disappearance comes less than three weeks after a crime journalist in Sonora,
Marco Antonio Ávila García, was kidnapped and later found tortured and killed.
Gang member Jonathan Martínez Castro was
sentenced to 30 years in prison by a San Salvador court on 31 May for the murder of Canal 33 cameraman Alfredo Hurtado. Two gunmen shot Hurtado while he was visiting Ilopango, on the outskirts of the Salvadorian capital, on 25 April 2011. Hurtado had often covered gang member arrests, and it has been reported that the Mara Salvatrucha gang, of which Martínez Castro was a member, had suspected Hurtado had identified two of its members to the police as the murderers of another gangster. Martínez Castro’s alleged accomplice, Marlon Abrego Rivas, is currently a fugitive.
The headquarters of Venezuelan newspaper Versión Final, in the city of Maracaibo, was shot at nine times on 3 June, making the attack
the third of its kind against a media outlet in the northeastern state of Zulia. On 28 May, the headquarters of newspaper Qué Pasa was attacked by a grenade that damaged the front side of the building, although there were no casualties. The following day, the public television station in Catatumbo suffered an armed attack.
A constitutional amendment was given
final approval in Mexico yesterday [7 June] making attacks on the press a federal offence in Mexico. The amendment, passed by 16 state legislatures, allows federal authorities to investigate and punish crimes against journalists, persons or installations when the right to information or the right to expression is affected. Press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists heralded the “landmark legislation”, with the groups’s senior programme coordinator for the Americas, Carlos Lauría, deeming it a “first step to stop impunity in the killings of Mexican journalists.”
Political columnist Katia D’Artigues, of Mexican newspaper El Universal, has said she and her son have
received death threats via Twitter for having criticised presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). PRI members are reported to have condemned the threats and have denied involvement.
Ten suspects have been arrested as part of the investigation into the murder of Alfredo Villatoro in
Honduras, including one policeman. Villatoro
was kidnapped earlier this month, and his body was found dumped, dressed in police uniform. He had been shot twice in the head. On Sunday five suspects were arrested, and a number of weapons were seized from their homes. Police also seized two cars believed to be linked to the kidnapping.
Other arrests have been made, and two prison inmates are being questioned, after a call from a mobile phone traced back to the prison was made to Villatoro’s family.
Critical TV and radio stations in
Ecuador have
been closed down, after authorities stormed the offices and seized equipment. Authorities of the Police and the Telecommunications Superintendence (SUPERTEL) in the North East of Ecuador closed TV station Lidervisión and Radio Líder. They arrived at Lidervisión headquarters with a warrant from SUPERTEL, and proceeded to search the office, breaking and confiscating broadcasting equipment. The radio and TV stations’ owner, Edison Chávez, says the stations were closed after falling behind on concession fees. But the he owner of the radio and TV frequencies has claimed that the closures were politically motivated.
