Salvador Adame Pardo, journalist and owner of channel 4TV, was kidnapped in the afternoon of May 18 in the state of Michoacán, Mexico.
Family members told newspaper La Jornada that the television station owner was taken in the municipality of Nueva Italia by people in a black van.
Enrique Karrum Vázquez, president of the Michoacán Association of Cable Television (AMTELCA for its acronym in Spanish), said the captors wore hoods and were driving a vehicle with plates from the state of Mexico, according to UrbisTV.
The family also said Adame Pardo had long received anonymous threats because of his work, according to the newspaper.
La Silla Rota reported that the journalist has been a critic of the work of the mayor of Múgica. The site added that Adame Pardo was the subject of police harassment about a year ago, and maintained a critical position toward the criminal scene in the area.
According to Sin Embargo, the journalist reported on social media in April 2016 that officers from the Public Security Secretariat hit his wife, himself and other detained persons during the removal of people who had taken over the mayor’s office in Múgica.
The family reported the kidnapping to the public prosecutor. However, according to Sin Embargo, the family said the Prosecutor’s Office against Kidnapping in Michoacán asked them to wait up to 62 hours to file their complaint.
La Silla Rota reported that the Attorney General’s Office of Michoacán has not made a statement about the kidnapping. However, it said the State Commission of Human Rights has a case file on the journalist.
It has already been a violent week for the press in Mexico. Javier Valdez, a noted journalist and author who covered drug trafficking, was shot and killed in Sinaloa on May 15, which led to widespread protests of violence against journalists.
Two days later, President Enrique Peña Nieto held a meeting with governors and officials of the federal government in which he announced measures to protect journalists. These measures, according to news site Animal Político, include strengthening the structure and budget for the Protection Mechanism for Journalists and Human Rights Defenders, a national coordination scheme for states, and the strengthening of the Special Prosecutor’s Office. Animal Político also noted that journalists were not called to the table to participate in the meeting.
Sin Embargo reported that Silvano Aureoles, governor of Michoacán, did not attend the federal government’s May 17 meeting.
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.
