Miami (July 12, 2010)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today expressed outrage and horror at the murders of two more journalists in Mexico over the weekend in Nuevo León and Chihuahua, bringing to nine the number of newsmen killed this year.
Marco Aurelio Martinez, 45, director of the newscast “Informativo 800” broadcast by Radio La Tremenda in Montemorelos, Nuevo León, was abducted and then murdered with a shot to the head on Saturday (July 10) evening.
That same afternoon Guillermo Alcaraz Trejo, 24, was killed by a group of hired gunmen according to the Chihuahua State Journalist Association. Alcaraz Trejo headed the State Human Rights Commission’s online television program.
IAPA President Alejandro Aguirre, editor of the Miami, Florida, Spanish-language newspaper Diario Las Américas, declared, “We are extremely concerned at the wave of violence against journalists that we are forced to condemn every single week. We repeat our call to the Mexican authorities to investigate immediately, to determine motives, identify those responsible and properly bring the full weight of the law to bear where it belongs.”
This year alone, seven other journalists have been murdered in Mexico — Hugo Alfredo Olivera Cartas, María Elvira Hernández Galeana, Juan Francisco Rodríguez Ríos, Evaristo Pacheco Solís, Jorge Ochoa Martínez, José Luis Romero and Valentín Valdés Espinosa. Another six have been kidnapped and remain missing.
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. The IAPA Impunity Project is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and has the mission of combating violence against journalists and lessening the impunity surrounding the majority of such crimes. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org; http://www.impunidad.com
