The Attorney General of the state of Chihuahua offered a reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunmen who shot and killed Mexican journalist Jaime Guadalupe González, director of the website Ojinaga Noticias, on Sunday, March 3, according to the newspaper Diario de Cuidad Juárez.
The state attorney offered a reward of over $15,600 to anyone who can help authorities identify and locate the journalist's killers, according to the website Frontenet.
Following the death of the website's director, administrators removed all its content and shut down the news website for Ojinaga, a rural town located along the Río Bravo on the United States-Mexico border.
The state's governor, César Duarte, announced a life sentence for the killers of the journalist since there is evidence suggesting the crime was an attack on freedom of expression, reported the website La Policiaca. The governor's words, however, were problematic because he assumed a judge's role and no one has been arrested for the crime, state legislator Héctor Ortiz told Diario.
González was the 18th journalist killed in Chihuahua since 2000 with many of the killers enjoying impunity, according to the Juárez Network of Journalists. That same week, there were armed attacks on two media organizations in Ciudad Juárez and another border town in the same state.
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.
