It also urges punishment of those guilty of five murders in 2012
Miami (May 24, 2012)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today asked the Mexican authorities to conduct an investigation into a raid by unidentified persons on the home of the editor-in-chief of the Grupo Reforma news company, an action that the hemisphere organization saw as “an intimidating message” that should be promptly clarified so as to “prevent greater consequences.”
Assailants on the evening of May 22 burst into the home of Lázaro Ríos in Mexico City when no one was there. The police reported that nothing was stolen from the house, although drawers, closets and doors were intentionally left open.
The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Gustavo Mohme, declared, “The modus operandi clearly shows that is was not a case of common crime but an intimidating message, which needs to be investigated promptly.”
Mohme, editor of the Lima, Peru, newspaper La República, added that to investigate and determine responsibilities “is the only way that greater consequences can be prevented.”
Lázaro Ríos is the editor-in-chief of the Grupo Reforma news company which publishes, among other newspapers, the prestigious dailies Reforma in the Mexican capital and El Norte in Monterrey, in Nuevo León state on the border with the United States.
It was not immediately known if the incident was connected with some kind of news or journalistic investigations.
Mohme recalled that the IAPA has been insisting to Mexico’s federal government that it pursue investigations into five cases of journalists killed so far this year, and put an end to the impunity surrounding other crimes.
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
