Just two days after the release of a report on the state of press freedom in Mexico that denounced increasing police and military aggression against reporters, a photographer for the Televisa station was arrested and beaten by security agents in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila on Friday, March 4, reported local press.
The journalist, Milton Martinez, was arrested while covering a confrontation between delinquents and police in the city of Saltillo. Televisa said that despite identifying himself as a journalist, state agents beat him, forced him to the floor, and took away his identification, police scanner and telephone. He then was put into a police car and taken to the police station before later being released.
Martínez said via his Twitter account that he had filed a complaint. Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission announced that it was investigating, reported Radio Fórmula.
Last Monday, state police attacked photographer Julián Ortega, of the newspaper El Imparcial, which also is in northern Mexico, in the state of Sonora. See this Knight Center map for more information about violence against journalists in Mexico.
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.
