Another journalist from Veracruz, Mexico has been killed, this time while under state protection.
Salvador Olmos García, a 31-year-old community radio host, is dead after being run over by a police car in Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca on June 26.
Journalist Álvaro Aceituno López, 65, was killed near his home in Coatepeque, Quetzaltenango in southwest Guatemala on June 25. He is the fifth journalist killed in Guatemala in the first six months of 2016, according to the Center for Informative Reports about Guatemala (Cerigua).
Less than 24 hours after the death of a journalist in Oaxaca, a reporter in Tamaulipas state has been killed by a group of armed men. She is the eighth journalist killed in Mexico this year.
Jacinto (Jay) Torres Hernández, a journalist, photographer and real estate agent living in Texas, was found with a gunshot wound to the chest late June 13 in the backyard of a house in the city of Garland, according to newspaper La Estrella.
Mexican reporter Elidio Ramos Zárate, who had been covering a teachers’ union protest in Oaxaca, was killed on June 19 while taking a photo of a robbery in-progress at a convenience store, according to newspaper El Universal.
In the span of a week, two respected journalists in Central America have died under mysterious circumstances. Journalists associations in Guatemala and El Salvador are calling on authorities to solve the deaths of television director Víctor Hugo Valdez and television producer Pedro Antonio Portillo, respectively.
More than half of the deaths registered this year occurred in only two countries: Mexico (9) and Guatemala (5). Homicides and deaths were also reported in Honduras (3), El Salvador (3), Brazil (2) and Venezuela (2). Perpetrators were identified in only five cases.
Two Latin American journalists will be recognized this year at the rededication of the Journalists Memorial of the Newseum, a U.S.-based museum and institute dedicated to freedom of expression.
Journalist Manuel Torres González, 45, was shot in the head from behind on May 14 after leaving state offices in the city of Poza Rica in northern Veracruz, as reported by Milenio, citing the Attorney General of Veracruz.
Police have detained a man allegedly involved in the murder of Mexican journalist Anabel Flores Salazar whose murder authorities said was motivated by her work as a journalist.
On April 22, 2016, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights received a complaint against the Brazilian State for the 1975 death of journalist Vladimir Herzog during the country’s military dictatorship. According to the newspaper O Globo, "the Federal Attorney General has already been notified" and the Court must now hear from those involved to decide whether to accept the complaint.