A Salvadoran communication worker's recent murder is directly linked to his work, according to communications groups that have called on the government for a thorough investigation of the crime and protection for media workers.
The former mayor of Silao (in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico), Enrique Benjamín Solís Arzola, was arrested on March 11 for alleged involvement in the attack against journalist Karla Silva from newspaper El Heraldo de León in 2014. After a long hearing, the local court ordered Solís to be taken into custody for two months, a period in which to conclude the investigation against him.
According to witnesses, two people on a motorcycle fired eight shots at a car parked in the garage of Brazilian journalist Kenedy Salomé Lenk in the early morning hours of March 10, reported newspaper O Globo. The journalist, his wife and daughter were asleep inside the house at the time.
Brazilian radio host João Valdecir de Borba, known as Valdão, was killed on March 10 while working in the studios of Rádio Difusora AM in São Jorge do Oeste, southwestern Paraná state.
The Attorney General of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Guatemala decided to transfer the cases of two journalists murdered in 2015 to the Special Prosecutor Against Impunity (FECI for its initials in Spanish).
Mexico is experiencing a “serious human rights crisis,” according to the recent report “Situation of Human Rights in Mexico” from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). According to the organization, the high rates of forced disappearances, torture, citizen insecurity, restricted access to justice and impunity generate special concern.
About 96 percent of the murders of journalists and other media workers in Honduras remain in impunity, according to figures received by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) that recently published the report “Situation of Human Rights in Honduras.”
Amid the controversy generated by the recent murder of a journalist in Veracruz and criticism against its governor Javier Duarte, the state leader published tweets linking Josele Márquez, alias 'El Chichi', with the killing and insisted that organized crime is the real enemy of the press.
Mexico is the third deadliest country for journalists and other media workers in the world with 120 murders in the last 25 years, according to a report from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) that was released Feb. 3.
After a year of legal delays, a federal judge has ordered Mexico’s Attorney General's Office (PGR) to investigate the murder of journalist Moisés Sánchez Cerezo through the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE).