The first month of the year has not yet ended, and Latin America has already recorded at least four murders of journalists: two in Mexico, one in Peru and another in Colombia. The figure raises alarm bells for press advocates who see in these numbers evidence of how lethal violence continues to be used to censor the press.
“Although the contexts and circumstances are diverse, these crimes are a heartbreaking reminder that Latin America continues to be one of the most dangerous regions in the world for the press,” Artur Romeu, director of the Latin American office of Reporters Without Borders (RSF, for its initials in French), told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). “This beginning of the year makes it clear that violence continues to be one of the main mechanisms of censorship in many countries in the region.”
Although the direct relationship of the killings with the victims’ journalistic work is still being investigated and it is too early to determine any trends, the increase in attacks on journalists in the region, which includes the high number of murders in the first month of 2025, can be analyzed based on three elements, Jonathan Bock, executive director of Colombia’s Foundation for Freedom of the Press (FLIP), told LJR.
One has to do with the reconfiguration or consolidation of illegal armed groups or gangs in several countries in the region that are increasingly gaining more power and that threaten journalism to control information.
On Jan. 20, Gastón Medina Sotomayor became the first journalist murdered in Peru since 2017. (Photo: ANP Ica)
“There is a direct relationship between the increase in attacks against journalists and this reconfiguration of groups, especially linked to drug trafficking, which as a strategy seek to silence journalism to create fear in citizens,” Bock said.
Added to this is a “very weak institutional response.” Bock said States have shown that they do not have an effective response to the increase in crimes against journalists. It’s true even in countries that have the “institutional architecture” to defend journalists – that is, countries with mechanisms or other forms of protection.
“And I am not only referring to [responding to] the individual effect – not only in being able to respond when journalists are threatened, in creating protection and ways to address the situation – but in general terms there is no response to the collective effect that is created when a journalist is murdered: and it is censorship and it is fear,” Bock said.
It’s precisely the collective effects that must be taken into account to understand violence against the press, Bock said.
“What often happens is that they kill the most visible voice to send a message to the community and to colleagues who stop investigating and stop publishing,” he added. “It is difficult to quantify these silences after murders or acts of violence.”
For Bock, both States and citizens must look at ways to ensure that these silences do not multiply.
The murders of 2025
The most recently recorded murder was that of Alejandro Gallegos León, director of the citizen complaint page 'La Voz del Pueblo,' whose body was found on Jan. 25 on a road leading to the municipality of Cárdenas in the state of Tabasco, Mexico. Gallegos, who specialized in covering political and educational issues, had been reported missing the day before.
The Attorney General's Office of the State of Tabasco announced the discovery of the body and that it had opened an investigation into the crime. Freedom of expression organization Article 19 urged the Special Prosecutor for Attention to Crimes Committed against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE) and the Attorney General's Office of Mexico to take on the case so that Gallegos’ journalistic work would be investigated as a possible motive for the murder.
Also in Mexico, on Jan. 17, Calletano de Jesús Guerrero was killed in the municipality of Teoloyucan, in the State of Mexico. According to Article 19, on Jan. 13, the journalist received death threats from alleged members of groups dedicated to stealing fuel who went to his home located in Huehuetoca, in the State of Mexico.
For this reason, urgent support was requested from the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists. Even though the Mechanism removed him from his home that same day as an emergency measure, he was murdered four days later.
According to Article 19, the crime occurred after more than a decade of attacks against the journalist and other members of Global México, the media outlet where he worked.
“Unfortunately, this is not the first time that a pattern of murders has occurred in a short period of time. In the year 2022, the deadliest year on record, January ended with four murders,” Leopoldo Maldonado, director of Article 19, told LJR.
Maldonado said the murders in Mexico may be related to the territorial rearrangement of criminal groups that occurs with each change of government. “But above all, because of the disdain and inability of the State to prevent these crimes, in addition to the high levels of impunity that prevail,” he said.
According to him, the human rights agenda in general, and freedom of expression, in particular, “does not appear in President [Claudia] Sheinbaum's discourse.”
In Peru, on Jan. 20, Gastón Medina Sotomayor became the first journalist murdered in the country since 2017. Medina was the owner and director of Cadena Sur TV, in the province and region of Ica, and was known for his critical and biting style. Medina had recently denounced alleged high expenses at the provincial mayor's office, as well as other irregularities.
Around noon and when he was about to get into a vehicle that would take him to his second program of the day, a hooded person on a motorcycle shot Medina several times. He was taken to a hospital, but he was already dead.
Colombian journalist Óscar Gómez Agudelo was murdered in Armenia, in the department of Quindío on Jan. 24 when he was about to enter the radio station. (Photo: Personal archive)
The National Association of Journalists of Peru demanded that “the probable connection of the crime with the informative work” of the journalist be prioritized, taking into account that “he had received death threats on previous occasions, suffered attacks and was the subject of multiple and express animosities in various areas of his life as a result of his confrontational and controversial style.”
In Colombia, on Jan. 24, Óscar Gómez Agudelo was murdered in Armenia, in the department of Quindío. The journalist, who was previously a representative of the Chamber of Deputies, was about to enter the Rumba del Café radio station when a man shot him several times.
According to information collected by FLIP, his murder could be related to the complaints he was making in his program ' ‘La comunidad por la comunidad,’ and for which he had even received threats and had expressed fear of continuing with his work. The FLIP recorded his crime as the first murder of a journalist this year in Colombia. Although radio host Diomedes Farid Manrique was killed in confusing events on Jan. 19, the information collected by FLIP appears to show that the attack was not directed at him.
Murders in Latin America do not seem to be an exception globally. Andrea Cairola, UNESCO’s interim chief of section for Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists, said so far this year, the organization's Observatory of Killed Journalists has recorded murders of journalists in all but one of the regions of the world.
“This shows that journalists continue to be attacked and in danger in all parts of the world, including at maximum risk of losing their lives,” Cairola told LJR.
