Impunity in the murder of journalists is not new in Latin America. In the last decade, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported 72 instances of journalists killed for their work. About 78 percent of these cases faced complete or partial impunity. But in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, levels of impunity have surpassed those of any other Latin American country, according to CPJ’s 2014 Global Impunity Index.
The Mexican news site SinEmbargo has demanded that authorities investigate a series of attacks, threats, and defamatory acts that have targeted the publication regularly since Oct. 8, shortly after the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa in the state of Guerrero.
The recent murder of María del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, a physician and citizen journalist known on Twitter for her reports of cartel activity in northern Mexico, has sent shock waves through the state of Tamaulipas and shaken journalists working in citizen news networks across the region.
Journalist and activist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro was abducted in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo and tortured en route to Puebla after publishing a book, titled the "The Demons of Eden," on an investigation that linked local politicians and police to a child pornography and prostitution network.
When a group of men entered the Silao offices of El Heraldo de Leon in September and threatened and beat reporter Karla Silva, the case became a rallying point for the passage of a protection law for journalists in the state of Guanajuato.
Mexican activist Atilano Román Tirado was killed on Monday while giving a live radio broadcast in Mazatlan in the state of Sinaloa. Listeners of Román Tirado’s weekly radio show reported hearing gunshots after intruders entered the station and broke into the studio where the community leader was broadcasting.
Colombian journalist Javier Dario Restrepo and Mexican journalist Marcela Turati have been announced as the 2014 winners of the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation for New Ibero-American Journalism (FNPI) Acknowledgement of Journalistic Excellence award.
A video released by an anonymous source shows two Mexican journalists in the state of Michoacán taking money from members of one of the country’s most wanted cartel leaders, Servando “La Tuta” Gómez Martínez, in exchange for media advice.
In the aftermath of the severe beating of a young journalist, a police chief is on the run and journalists are rallying for protection of freedom of expression across Mexico.
As if the dangers of covering crime in one of the riskiest regions of the world for journalists weren’t enough, reporters in Northern Mexico now face new obstacles allegedly created by the authorities who were supposed to protect them.
A new report by Freedom of Expression advocacy organization Article 19-Mexico attributed a continuing trend of attacks against journalists to the Mexican government’s routine failure to prosecute attackers.
Three Mexican journalists in the states of Oaxaca, Veracruz and Guanajuato have been killed in the span of a week.