Two days after the sons of two Mexican journalists were shot dead in Chihuahua City, the state's governor, César Duarte announced that the motive for the crime was a drug debt of $825.
The sons of two Mexican journalists were shot and killed during an armed attack in Chihuhaua City early morning Sunday, news agency EFE reported.
With six countries listed without a free press, including three countries with some of the highest levels of impunity in the world for press crimes, Latin American freedom of expression is at its lowest levels since 1989.
On Thursday, May 2, the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French) published an open letter to United States President Barack Obama urging him to use his visit to Mexico this week to strike a firm commitment to protect freedom of expression and end impunity for press crimes in the troubled country.
On April 28, 2012, the news spread by word of mouth through a shocked community. Regina Martínez Pérez, correspondent for Proceso magazine, was found dead in her house in Xalapa, Veracruz.
To commemorate the one-year anniversary of the killing of Mexican journalist Regina Martínez, hundreds of journalists in 20 Mexican cities took to the streets on Sunday, April 28 to demand protection for the press and investigations into crimes against journalists. On Storify and Tumblr, journalists published images and text about the unpunished killings and attacks on journalists.
Update 2: Anonymous journalists in Saltillo told the magazine Proceso that a representative from the Coahuila state prosecutor knew in advance where to find the bodies of Martínez and Zamora.
Carlos Manuel Artaza, a journalist in Paraguay was shot five times and killed on Thursday April 25 in Pedro Juan Caballero city, near the capital of Asunción, where he was hospitalized, reported newspaper ABC Color.
On Friday, April 19, the chief of police in Minas Gerais confirmed the participation of police officers in the killing of two journalists in Vale do Aço, reported the website R7. Members of the civil and military police are under investigation for the killings.
Facing the possibility that three more cases of killed journalists might expire this year, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, FLIP, demanded that Colombia's Attorney General take all the necessary steps to bring the cases to justice, said the organization in a statement.