In the aftermath of the severe beating of a young journalist, a police chief is on the run and journalists are rallying for protection of freedom of expression across Mexico.
Karla Janeth Silva Guerrero, a 24-year-old reporter for El Heraldo de Leon, sustained life-threatening head injuries after three men threatened and beat her at the paper’s office in Silao, in the Mexican state of Guanajuato, on Mexico on Sept. 4.
The men entered the newsroom in the afternoon when Silva and her associate Adriana Palacio were present, according to news reports. They asked to see Silva and then proceeded to repeatedly hit her in the head and body as she tried to find refuge under a desk. The men ordered Silva to alter her reporting.
Prosecutors say that another assailant threated Palacio, holding her at knifepoint during the altercation.
Photos presumably taken shortly after the attack show a bewildered Silva with a deep gash in her forehead and slashes on top of her right eyebrow, nose, and mouth.
Silva’s writing is known to be critical of municipal authorities. Much of her work has focused on the mayor and his perceived mishandling of municipal issues, as well as his alleged blind eye to police abuse of authority.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that the administrative director of El Heraldo said Silva believed someone in the municipal government was behind the attack.
A judge decided on Sept. 17 that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute two men prosecutors said were at El Heraldo’s Silao office on Sept. 4, according to AM.
Today, authorities arrested a third man who previously eluded capture. Prosecutors named him at the main assailant in the attack.
Additionally, on Sept. 20, authorities arrested a municipal police sub-director who prosecutors said drove the three attackers to Silva’s office, according to AM.
Prosecutors said that the director of the municipal police, Nicasio Aguirre Guerrero, ordered the attack. UN1ÓN reported that he left his post six days after the attack and his whereabouts are unknown.
Government representatives, community members, and journalists have pressured the mayor of Silao, Enrique Benjamín Solís Arzola, to investigate the case and defend any role in the attack.
A group of reporters, cameramen, and photographers joined at the mayor’s office two days after the attack to question the municipal police’s investigation into the incident and ask why the director of Social Communication for the municipality had previously requested Silva’s removal, UN1ÓN reported.
Opposition leaders also criticized the mayor and asked the local congress to recall the election of Solís Arzola, a member of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.
The chief prosecutor in the case said the mayor is under investigation and will be summoned to testify in the case.
Solís Arzola has defended himself, and told reporters he did not order Aguirre Guerrero to assault Silva.
In the aftermath of the attack on Silva, journalists and other community members petitioned the state congress to approve a Law for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists in Guanajuato. More than 6,000 people signed the online petition as of Wednesday afternoon.
Journalists are also using social media and the hashtag #TodosSomosKarlaSilva to raise awareness about Silva’s case and violence against journalists in Mexico.
In the past three months, press freedom watchdog groups reported six additional attacks on Mexico-based journalists. A cameraman was stabbed to death at his home in Zacatecas; the son of a radio host was fatally shot while riding in a car at the entrance of the radio station in Luvianos; a newspaper reporter was killed outside his home in Oaxaca; a radio journalist was found dead in Tamaulipas; a magazine journalist was killed in Chihuahua; and shots were fired at the house of a newspaper editor in Veracruz. Authorities have not determined motives in these cases.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
