By Ingrid Bachmann
The president of the government-run National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), Raúl Plascencia, said killings, disappearances, and kidnappings of media workers and activists will be a priority for the agency in 2011, Milenio reports.
In order to face the growing number of crimes against journalists, Plascencia said the CNDH will strengthen its Grievance Program for Journalists and Human Rights Defenders, Europa Press and Diario de Querétaro explain.
Violence linked to organized crime has left its mark on the Mexican press, and the vast majority of perpetrators remain unpunished. El Diario de Juárez cites a CNDH report that catalogs crimes against journalists over the last decade. It shows that 608 general grievance complaints were filed, in addition to 66 homicides against media workers and 12 disappearances. According to the report, the majority of the aggressors are members of the various Mexican police forces.
For more details about the recent violence faced by Mexican journalists, see this Knight Center map.
The border regions suffer the most from this violence. For example, mayors from Tamulipas state said journalism is one of the professions put most at risk by organized crime, Milenio adds.
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.
