The Special Prosecutor’s Office for the Attention of Crimes Committed against Freedom of Expression (Feadle) of Mexico, with the help of Federal Police, carried out an arrest warrant against Juan Francisco “N,” “for his probable participation in the murder of journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas, on May 15, 2017.”
The names of two journalists from Mexico and another from Colombia will be added to the Journalists Memorial at the Washington, D.C.-based Newseum.
Mexican journalist Héctor González Antonio was found dead on May 29 in Ciudad Victoria, capital of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, according to local authorities.
Mexican authorities arrested Arturo Quintina, known as “El 80,” an alleged drug trafficker suspected of ordering the March 2017 murder of journalist Miroslava Breach, according to El País.
The call for justice for Mexico’s journalists will not stop, despite years of violence and impunity that plagues the profession in that Latin American country. To mark the one-year anniversary of the murder of Sinaloa-based reporter Javier Valdez, colleagues and friends carried out a National Day of Protest on social media and in person, calling for his killers to be brought to justice and for an end to violence against the journalists who uncover things that many would prefer were kept secret.
Mexican journalist Juan Carlos Huerta was killed in Tabasco on the morning of May 15 in what appears to be a targeted hit. His death comes on the one-year anniversary of the murder of journalist Javier Valdez, calling attention to the grave violence being faced by the Mexican press.
Two suspects in the murder of Nicaraguan journalist Ángel Gahona were sent to prison on May 8 after an initial hearing before a district judge in Managua, the country’s capital, La Prensa reported. However, the journalist’s family as well as the detainees and other civil society organizations, are protesting the accusation made by the public prosecutor’s office, saying it is a strategy of the authorities to avoid accusing the real perpetrators.
The film crew behind the latest documentary looking at violence against journalists in Mexico spent three years (2015-2017) working on the project. Three years which they say were the bloodiest for the country's press.
Mexican journalist Daniela Rea is the first winner of Breach-Valdez award for journalism and human rights. Upon receiving the award in Mexico City on May 3, which also marks World Press Freedom Day, Rea dedicated it to the families of its namesakes, slain Mexican journalists Miroslava Breach and Javier Valdez, as well as the other “113 colleagues who have been killed in Mexico since 2000.” She received the prize from Valdez’s widow, Griselda Triana, and journalist Pepe Reveles.
Federal Police arrested one of the suspects in the killing of Mexican journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas on April 23 in Tijuana, Baja California, according to Ríodoce. National Security Commissioner (CNS) Renato Sales Heredia formally announced the arrest at a press conference in Mexico City the following day.
"With deep regret, I regret to report that the assassination of our compatriots has been confirmed," Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno wrote on his Twitter account on the early afternoon of Friday, April 13. The president publicly confirmed the death of the two journalists and the driver from newspaper El Comercio, who were kidnapped at the end of March by a dissident group of the FARC.
On April 4, the Civil Police of the State of Goiás handed the Brazilian justice system the completed investigation of the murder of radio journalist Jefferson Pureza, who was killed in the city of Edealina on January 17 of this year. The police investigation concluded that councillor José Eduardo Alves da Silva, of the Party of the Republic (PR), ordered the crime and should be charged with double-qualified homicide, for trivial motive and for payment, according to G1.