Ten days after being kidnapped from his home in Zacatecas, Ulises González García was freed and then immediately hospitalized, reported Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The editor of the weekly newspaper La Opinión showed signs of having been tortured.
Faced with systematic attacks against journalists and the media in parts of Mexico, the United Nations (U.N.) and the Organization of American States (OAS) have proposed a new risk category for reporters who work in conflict zones that aren't within the definition of war outlined by international treaties, reported La Jornada.
The following account is a testimony from Marcela Turati, of the Red de Periodistas de a Pie (On-the-ground Journalists Network), one of the organizers of the unprecedented demonstrations in Mexico protesting the violence against journalists.
More than 1,000 reporters, editors, camera operators and photographers took to the streets in Mexico City and other towns in 11 states in defense of freedom of expression, calling for an end to violence against journalists, which has claimed at least 64 lives in the last decade, and left another 11 missing, reported the Latin American Herald Tribune and CBS News.
Mexican photogrpaher Alejandro Cossío, of the weekly ZETA in Tijuana, was awarded for his work “Mexico at the Breaking Point,” announced the Ibero-American New Journalism Foundation (FNPI).
As Mexican journalists are finalizing the details of their protest this Saturday against violence and threats against the country’s media workers, President Felipe Calderón met with media owners and editors to pledge federal government support, El Universal and La Jornada report.
Federal police announced the arrest of suspected gang members who allegedly kidnapped three TV journalists in northern Mexico last week, The Associated Press reports.
Drug-related violence in Mexico has not only left more than 28,000 dead since 2006, it has also plunged the local press into a crisis, one that has laid bare the chronic weaknesses of Mexican journalism.
Javier Canales and Alejandro Hernández, two of the four journalists kidnapped by drug gangs in Durango state, were freed in a rescue operation Saturday, AFP reports. Cameraman Héctor Gordoa was freed Thursday and La Cronica de Hoy reports that the journalist Óscar Solís had been released last Tuesday.
Martín López, a journalist and host at Canal 44 in Ciudad Juárez, has joined the ranks of media workers who have sought asylum in the U.S. border city of El Paso, after receiving threats from drug traffickers.
Héctor Gordoa, one of four journalists who were kidnapped this week in Durango state, was dropped off at Televisa’s Torreón offices, where he worked, AFP and La Jornada report.
Two reporters and two cameramen were kidnapped from the city of Gómez Palacio in Durango state, where they were covering prisoner unrest, the Los Angeles Times reports. The inmates were protesting revelations that jail officials allegedly armed inmates and used them to carry out drug-related killings, BBC explains.