A Mexican journalist was reported missing in the central state of San Luis Potosí, according to the news agency Notimex.
Family members of journalist Federico Manuel García Contreras, from the newspaper El Punto Crítico, reported his disappearance to the Special Prosecutor for Attention to Crimes Against Journalists.
Marisol García, the journalist's daughter who also works for the radio program Voces del Mediodía, said that her father had taken a bus on May 13 from Mexico City to Tanquián de Escobedo (on the border with Veracruz, the most dangerous state for the press in Mexico). That same day, the journalist called to say that he arrived safely and that he would be staying at a guesthouse. The next day, he said that the chief of municipal police had prohibited him from doing interviews because there were organized crime disputes in that town, according to the newspaper Reforma.
In another telephone call, the graphic reporter said to his sentimental partner that he had argued with chief of police José Alberto Troas, who threatened to go all the way to Mexico City to verify that he was a journalist, according to the news agency Proceso.
On May 23, the owner of the guesthouse contacted a friend of the journalist to report that the journalist has not been seen in a week, according to the news agency Notimex.
Chief of police Troas said that the journalist was arrested on May 18 for disturbing public order during a teachers meeting where he was allegedly drunk, reported the newspaper La Jornada de San Luis. However, family members found discrepancies in this because the medical exam from the police headquarters was dated May 17 (and not May 18), and the doctor who did the exam said the journalist presented no signs of alcohol consumption, reported Proceso.
This makes the 16th case of missing journalists in Mexico, the most dangerous country in the Americas for the press. See this map about attacks against the Mexican press made by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
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.
