Miami (September 25, 2009)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today stated outrage at the murder in Mexico of Norberto Miranda Madrid and in Colombia of Diego Rojas Velásquez and called on the authorities in each country to make all efforts to identify the killers.
The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Robert Rivard, declared, “Our organization first offers its sympathy to the two victims’ families and colleagues and, second we insist that investigations be made promptly to determine the motives, identify who carried them out and bring the guilty to justice.”
Miranda Madrid was killed in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. He was the director of Radio Visión, an online newscast in the town of Nuevo Casas Grandes. At 11:00 p.m. on Wednesday (September 23) at least three unidentified armed men burst into the newsroom and fired off several shots in front of the staff.
The journalist, known as “El Gallito” (The Tough Guy), also wrote an online column titled “Cotorreando con el Gallito” (Chatting with the Tough Guy), which was devoted on Tuesday this week to the lack of security and predominance of violence in Chihuahua, among other issues. He had told some colleagues that he received threats earlier this month after writing about the arrest of three alleged drug traffickers belonging to the Juárez Cartel.
In addition to Miranda Madrid seven journalists have been murdered in Mexico so far this year – Daniel Martínez Gil, Ernesto Montañez Valdivia, Martín Javier Miranda Avilés, Eliseo Barrón Hernández, Carlos Ortega Melo Samper, Luis Daniel Méndez Hernández and Jean Paul Ibarra Ramírez.
In Colombia, Rojas Velásquez, a reporter with Supia TV television channel in Caldas province, was murdered on Tuesday (September 22) around 6:30 p.m. He was in the newsroom when, just minutes before the broadcast was to begin, he received a phone call and left immediately.
Luis Carlos Taborda, Supia TV’s director, told the IAPA’s Rapid Response Unit that Rojas Velásquez “didn’t say where he was going, he just left in a rush”. Five minutes later, he added, the station received a call saying he had been murdered. Taborda had worked as a reporter and cameraman for the station for the past two months, covering sports and social and community events. Neither his family nor his colleagues believe his death was linked to his work as a journalist. He had received no threats.
Prior to this murder, slain in Colombia so far in 2009 were journalists José Everardo Aguilar and Hernando Salas Rojas. To date, only the Aguilar case can be regarded as a murder connected to the victim’s profession, the others are still under investigation.
Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas, announced that the IAPA will be following up these two new cases in Mexico and Colombia together with other violent acts against journalists and news media, matters that will also be discussed during the organization’s upcoming annual General Assembly, to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 6-10.
