Posts Tagged ‘Mexico’

Mexico: Columnist threatened after criticising presidential candidate

June 7th, 2012

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.

Mexico: Murdered journalist’s son requests protection for press

May 25th, 2012

The son of a murdered Mexican journalist has called for protection of journalists in Veracruz. Journalist and photographer Miguel Ángel López Solana, whose father, mother, brother and five colleagues have been murdered in the city, has said “things have to change”. Speaking at a journalism conference he added “We shouldn’t have to suffer from anymore deaths in Veracruz.” The journalist lost his father, journalist Miguel Ángel López Velasco, his brother Misael López Solana, and his mother, Agustina Solana, in June 2011 when gunmen stormed their house and shot them in their sleep.

Mexico: Kidnapped reporter found dead in Mexico

May 21st, 2012

The body of a murdered Mexican crime reporter was found at a roadside on Friday. Marco Antonio Avila Garcia of “Diario Sonora de la Tarde” and “El Regional” newspapers was kidnapped on Thursday while waiting at a car-wash. His tortured body was discovered in a black plastic bag the following day,  in the northern state of Sonora, almost 70 miles away from where he was kidnapped. Police found a message signed by a cartel with the body, but refused to reveal its contents. Garcia regularly reported on organised crime in Ciudad Obregon.

Mexico: TV network faces bomb attack

March 30th, 2012

National Mexican television network Televisa, based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state, suffered a bomb attack on 25 March. No one was injured in the blast, which occurred in the wake of two other attacks in the same part of northern Mexico. On 19 March a car bomb explosion took place at the offices of the daily Expreso in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas state. Expreso subsequently removed a statement on the attack from its website. The Durango home of Víctor Montenegro, editor of the weekly El Contralor, also faced a shooting attack during the night of 24 March. Televisa was hit by similar blasts in August 2010, though no injuries were caused.

Mexico: Journalist killed by armed gang

January 10th, 2012

A Mexican journalist has been murdered by an armed gang during a high-speed car chase. Raúl Régulo Garza Quirino, from local weekly newspaper La Última Palabra, in Nuevo León, was killed as he tried to escape the bullets of an armed gang who were firing at him from two pursuing vehicles. Quirino’s body was discovered in front of a mechanic shop, owned by a relative. Quirino is the first journalist to be killed in Mexico in 2012. In 2011, the country was named the world’s most dangerous country to practice journalism, by the International Press Institute (IPI).

Mexico: Slander and libel decreminalised

December 2nd, 2011

Slander and libel have been decriminalised by the Mexican Senate. The senate approved the repeal of Articles 1 and 31 of the Crimes Act, with a unanimous decision. Mexico have joined El Salvador as the second Latin American country to decriminalise honour crimes. The decision follows the end of a seven-year defamation trial where the newspaper La Jornada accused magazine Letras Libres of damaging its reputation. The court determined that freedom of expression supersedes the right to honour.

Take action to end impunity: José Bladimir Antuna García

November 2nd, 2011

International Day to End ImpunityMURDERED 2 NOVEMBER 2005
Journalist, “El Tiempo de Durango” –  Durango, Mexico

Join us in demanding justice for crime reporter José Bladimir Antuna Garcían, 39, who was found murdered on 2 November 2009 after he was ambushed by five armed men in the Mexican city of Durango on his way to work. Attached to his body was a note reading, “This happened to me for giving information to the military and for writing too much.” Antuna had been investigating corruption and police crime and had been receiving threatening calls, some from the powerful drug cartel Los Zetas. He reported the threats to the state attorney general’s office; they were never followed up.

Take action and send a letter to the authorities demanding an immediate and open investigation into this case here

International Day to End Impunity is on 23 November. Until that date,  we will reveal a story each day of a journalist, writer or free expression advocate who was killed in the line of duty.

Mexico: Reporter goes missing in Veracruz

September 27th, 2011

Mexican reporter Manuel Gabriel Fonseca Hernández, who covers crime for El Mañanero de Acayucan, a newspaper in the south of Veracruz state, has been reported missing since 19 September. His family says that, on day he disappeared, he had gone out to conduct interviews for a story he was writing for his main newspaper.