The state police of Coahuila, Mexico have begun the search for journalist Gerardo Padilla Blanquet, reported missing on April 30 in Saltillo, reported the newspaper Vanguardia.
Padilla is the anchor of the show En Vivo Radio y TV and sales director for Grupo Radio Grande of Coahuila, a state that borders Texas. On Twitter, Padilla’s friends and colleagues have asked for the public’s help in finding him. The authorities have started their search even though there has been no formal declaration of his status as a missing person as of the morning of May 1. Through Twitter, Padilla’s radio station asked for help and denounced his disappearance.
Solicitamos la colaboración para dar con el paradero de Gerardo Blanquet, quien desapareció desde el día de ayer en Saltillo, Coahuila
— La Radio Grande (@LaRadioGrande) May 1, 2013
Last December, the Coahuila Commission for Human Rights asked for protection for Padilla and his family - Padilla was a witness to aggressive behavior by the guards of the state prosecutor towards his colleague Milton André Martínez Galindo, said the newspaper Zócalo.
In June 2012, Mexican journalist Stephania Cardoso managed to get protection from the federal government after disappearing for 14 days. She had been covering security for Zócalo in Saltillo.
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.
