In spite of promises from media outlets and the Mexican authorities to improve protection for journalists exposed to drug trafficking violence, attacks against the press are unceasing, prompting media workers to take to the streets to pressure the government to end the violence.
Rafael Maitín, the owner of Pedraza TV, based in the city of Pedraza in the state of Barinas, accused Mayor Yusein Silva of being behind the May 12 shutdown of his station, the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) reports.
With the Mexican press still reeling from the recent disappearance of one journalist and the appearance in a hidden grave of the body of another journalist, now local media are reporting the June 14 killing of reporter Pablo Ruelas Barraza in Huatabampo, in the northern Mexican state of Sonora.
Radio journalist Nelson Hernández was stabbed to death in the wee hours Wednesday, June 8, in Izalco, west of the capital of El Salvador, as he was headed to work at the radio station SKY, reported El Universal.
On June 8, less than two weeks after assailants attempted to burn TV director Mario Esteban López alive, he received threats telling him he could be killed if he stayed in the Ecuador-Colombia border city of Ipiales, El Observador reports.
The wave of violence against journalists in Mexico appears to have no end. Even as Mexican media outlets on June 9 reported the kidnapping of journalist Marco Antonio López Ortiz, information chief for the newspaper Novedades Acapulco in the state of Veracruz, journalists remained on alert because of the beating journalist Carlos de Jesús Rodríguez, director of the news site Gobernantes.com, suffered while in jail.
A group of demonstrators threatened and beat three Mexican journalists from the newspaper Noticias, Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca after invading the newspaper's offices in the city of Oaxaca, in Southeastern Mexico, and painting the newspaper's facade with anti-press slogans, reported the National Center of Social Communication (CENCOS).
Nearly 70 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000 and the the Mexican government is “complicit” in the crimes against media workers, according to a new report by PEN Canada and the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) at the University of Toronto, the Toronto Star reports.
An Argentine journalist denounced the attempted kidnapping of his son after receiving various threats related to his work, reported Análisis. Sergio Schneider, editor in chief at the newspaper Norte in Resistencia, in the province of Chaco, in northeastern Argentina, filed a complaint May 27, in which he called the attempted kidnapping part of a plan to hurt his family because of his journalist work, added Norte.
A São Paulo city judge has ordered Brazilian soccer coach Emerson Leão to pay approximately $12,500 to Radio Central de Campinas journalist José Henrique Semedo, Esporte e Mídia reports.
Journalist Moreira Neto reports in his blog that Councilman Zé Gomes allegedly attacked him after a June 3 council meeting in the northern city of Paço do Lumiar, Maranhão.
Journalist Mario Esteban López managed to escape with his life after the matches were too wet for his kidnappers to light the more than two gallons of gasoline they poured on him, EFE reports.