Two unidentified, armed assailants went to the home of journalist Juan Francisco Rodríguez Ríos and his wife María Elvira Hernández Galeana, where they ran an Internet cafe in Coyuca de Benítez, in the southern state of Guerrero, and shot them to death, reported El Universal.
Armed men attacked the newspaper Noticias de El Sol de la Laguna in the city of Torreón in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila on Tuesday, June 22, reports El Nuevo Herald.
Mexico's National Human Rights Commission intends to establish an area within the organization dedicated to following step-by-step each case of aggression against journalists, reports the newspaper El Universal.
The Inter American Press Association is kicking off a workshop about how to diminish journalists' risks with the debut of a documentary commemorating the assassination of journalist Francisco Ortiz Franco in Tijuana, Mexico, on June 22, 2004, according to the newspaper El Universal.
Thirteen journalists and photographers from Michoacán state in southwestern Mexico were abducted for three hours during a government media tour to promote tourism in the region, the Associated Press reports.
Mexico’s growing drug violence is a leading topic of news around the world, making headlines this week, for example, not only in English and Spanish, but in Arabic, Japanese, Russian and Urdu.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has written to President Felipe Calderón to express concern over several attacks and cases of harassment by federal forces against journalists who cover law enforcement.
Mexico's interior minister, Fernando Gómez Mont, demanded the press act responsibly, insisting that the violence prevailing in the country is caused by information spread by the media, El Universal and El Economista report.
Something is wrong with access to information if the body responsible for overseeing the law that protects information access in a country asks the government to clearly state that it doesn't intend to impede transparency. This is what has happened in Mexico, where the Federal Institute of Information Access (IFAI) called on the Secretary of Government to ratify that lack of transparency and accountability will not be reinstated, reported El Universal and La Jornada.
The country's biggest media outlet announced that it would not report on the disappearance of former presidential candidate Diego Fernández de Cevallos until the investigation has concluded, drawing criticism from media and security experts, CNN México reports. (See articles in English by The Christian Science Monitor and the Associated Press.)
President Barack Obama is hosting his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderón this week on an official state visit to Washington that includes talks on bilateral issues such as immigration and drug violence on the U.S.–Mexico border. The Committee to Protect Journalists urges the leaders to put Mexico’s press freedom crisis on their agenda.
The offices of Televisa’s Canal 2 in Tepic, Nayarit (on Mexico’s central Pacific coast) were attacked with AK-47s and grenades, La Jornada reports. The facilities suffered damage, but neither of the two people in the offices were wounded, Europa Press adds. (See this Associated Press article in English.)