The organization also calls for action in disappearance of another journalist two weeks ago
Miami (November 15, 2012).—The Mexican authorities were urged by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) to conduct a prompt investigation into the death in Puebla of reporter Adrian Silva Moreno to determine why he was killed and who was responsible.
Silva Moreno, a freelance journalist who reported for a number of local newspapers, and a person accompanying him, identified as Misrael López González, were killed on Wednesday (November 14) afternoon in the town of Tehuacán, Puebla, a state official confirmed.
The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Claudio Paolillo, declared, “We condemn this act of violence and urge the authorities to investigate the crime promptly so as to learn the reasons that motivated it, identify those responsible and bring them to justice.”
Local media said that Silva Moreno, 34, and López González, 27, were driving back from covering a military operation when, according to eye-witnesses, they were intercepted and attacked by at least three assailants riding in a pickup truck.
The reporter died on the spot, his body later being found with multiple bullet wounds, while López González, a former police officer, managed to get out of the car he was in, but was caught up with by the attackers, who killed him with one shot to the head in front of a dozen people who happened to be on the street.
Silva Moreno covered the police beat and violent activities for Global México, Radio 11.70 radio station of Tehuacán and the newspaper Puntual Puebla, among other media.
Murdered in Mexico this year have been another six journalists – Víctor Manuel Báez Chino, Gabriel Huge, Guillermo Luna, Esteban Rodríguez and Regina Martínez in Veracruz, and Marcos Antonio Ávila García in Sonora.
Whereabouts of journalist remain unknown
The IAPA also called on the Mexican authorities to look into the disappearance of journalist Adela Jazmin Alcaraz López, who went missing on October 26. She is the host of the newscast aired by Canal 12 cable television channel in the town of Rioverde, in San Luis Potosí state.
She was reported to have been kidnapped, along with her two young sons, who were later freed. The authorities have not been able to establish whether her disappearance is linked to her work as a journalist.
Other journalists who have gone missing in Mexico this year are Miguel Morales Estrada in Veracruz, Zane Plemmons in Tamaulipas and Federico Manuel García Contreras in San Luis Potosí.
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. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org.
