Repeated violence against journalists is the primary concern, along with the impunity that reigns in most of the cases and the fact that laws in favor of protection of journalists have been little more than words on paper.
During this period six murders and three disappearances of journalists have been recorded.
On June 22 President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa signed a decree authorizing the Law for the Protection of Persons who Defend Human Rights and the Federalization of Crimes committed against Journalists.
Various organizations that defend the rights of journalists celebrated the reform of Art. 73, section XXI of the Constitution that will permit federal authorities to acknowledge and investigate crimes against freedom of expression now to be investigated and adjudicated at the federal level.
Such a measure had been recommended insistently by the IAPA and international organizations such as the UN Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In spite of this advance, the system to choose members of the Consultative Council on Mechanisms to Protect Persons who Defend Human Rights and Journalists has been put into question, for that responsibility falls unilaterally upon the Secretariat of Governance.
On July 26, the National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH) revealed that some seventy per cent of attacks against journalists have remained unpunished.
According to the CNDH, eighty-two journalists have been murdered and sixteen have disappeared since the year 2000. Twenty-eight attacks against offices or vehicles belonging to the media have been recorded. Of all of these crime figures, the CNDH indicates that only one-fifth of the cases have seen indictments of suspects, and less than one in ten attacks have resulted in convictions of those responsible.
A report from a committee of experts on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, a UN organization, indicates that Mexico has the highest rate of attacks against female journalists, since thirteen woman communicators were murdered between 2005 and 2012, and more than one hundred have denounced various types of violence in the conduct of their work.
Main acts of aggression against journalists:
On April 25, employees of the newspaper Enlace in the city of Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, received threats and attempts at extortion on the part of presumed members of the criminal gang Los Zetas, who threatened to kidnap a reporter on the paper.
On April 28 journalists Regina Martínez was murdered; she was a correspondent in Veracruz of the weekly Processo in the city of Xalapa, Veracruz. She was found lifeless in her home in Colonia Felipe Carrillo Puerto and showed evidence of blows to her face and the rest of her body, in addition to signs of asphyxiation. Almost two months after the crime, the State Prosecutors Office of Veracruz let it be known through ex-official sources that the crime was not related to her work as a reporter, but rather due to reasons of passion.
On May 3, graphic reporters Guillermo Luna, Gabriel Huge, Esteban Rodríguez and Ana Irasema Becerra were murdered. Their bodies were found in a sewage canal in the city of Boca del Rio, Veracruz. Guillermo Luna and Gabriel Huge had been reported missing by their families. Along with the bodies of the four journalists two other persons were found. The three photographers covered the police source and were companions on Notiver of Miguel Ángel López Velasco and his son Misael López Solana, murdered on June 20, 2011. Civic organizations dedicated to the protection of journalists had already warned that the journalists had left Veracruz one year earlier because of threats. This situation had been reported to the government of the state on October 27, 2011 by organizations that defend the rights of journalists; however, no authority took up the matter. Ana Irasema Becerra was publicist for the newspaper El Dictamen. On August 15 last, the General Prosecutors Office announced the arrest of the self-styled criminal group the New Generation Jalisco Cartel, headed by Isaías Flores Pineda, presumed local gang leader in Veracruz and Boca del Rio. The arrests solved thirty-six crimes in the area over the past eight months, including those of Ana Irasema Becerra Jiménez, Guillermo Luna Varela, Gabriel Huge Córdoba and Esteban Rodríguez. According to the Prosecutor, those arrested admitted responsibility for the murders of the journalists.
On May 11, the facilities of the newspaper El Mañana, in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, were attacked by armed subjects who shot against the building and threw an explosive device. There were no injuries, only damage to several vehicles in the newspapers parking lot. In another attack against the same outlet on July 11, unknown persons threw a grenade against the headquarters building of the newspaper.
On May 13, reporter René Orta Salgado, formerly with El Sol de Cuernavaca, was found dead in the back seat of his vehicle in the state of Morelos. Orta Salgado had quit his newspaper work last December to head up a political group called Emprendedores por la Nación in support of the presidential candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Enrique Peña Nieto. According to authorities, the journalist had not received threats. The General Prosecutors Office of Morelos discarded the idea that organized crime was behind the murder and asserted that the investigation was advancing, but up to this date the crime remains unpunished.
On May 16 the disappearance of graphic reporter Federico Manuel García Contreras was reported in the municipality of Tanquián de Escobedo, in the state of San Luís Potosí. The journalist worked for the newspaper El Punto Crítico, with headquarters in the nations capital. On May 13, three days before his disappearance, the communicator had called one of his daughters and told her that he had had an altercation with the local police chief, José Alberto Troas, who supposedly had prohibited him from conducting interviews in the area because it was dangerous. After the disappearance of the reporter, of whom nothing has been known since May 16, his daughters went to San Luís Potosi where they were told that their father had been arrested on May 18 in a state of drunkenness. This version contradicted that of a doctor who had examined him, who said that he had seen him on May 17 and not the 18th, in addition to which the journalist showed no signs of inebriaty. In the meantime, the woman in charge of the hotel where the communicator was staying denied having seen García Contreras return to the hotel in the company of police officers. Up to this date, the journalist has not appeared.
On May 18 the lifeless body of Marcos Ávila García of the newspaper El Regional of Sonora was found. One day earlier it had been reported that armed subjects had deprived the reporter of his freedom. His body was found with signs of strangulation some meters from the highway that connects the municipalities of Guaymas and Empalme. The crime still remains unpunished.
On May 21, independent photographer Zane Alejandro Plemmons Rosales disappeared in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas; he was a citizen of the United States and Mexico. Plemmons, a collaborator of the newspapers El Debate and La i in Sinaloa in 2010, was seen for the last time on the night of May 21, when he was leaving to take photographs of a shoot-out around 10:00 pm. That same night, two armed men went to the hotel where the journalist was staying and demanded the keys to his room, and then took all of his belongings. Up to the present time, the case remains unsolved
On June 2, journalist Katia DArtigues, a collaborator with the newspaper El Universal, submitted a complaint of occurrences to the Prosecutors Office of the Federal District, after having received several threats on Twitter.
On June 9 the disappearance was reported of Stephania Cardoso and her young son. Stephania at that time worked as a police reporter for the newspapers Zócalo de Saltillo, Coahuila and Calibre 57. The reporter reappeared on June 16 and asked for protection from the Mexican government for her and her son, alleging that their lives were at risk.
On June 22, Veronica Jiménez, a correspondent for the Reforma Group in the state of Hidalgo, was arbitrarily arrested by public safety officers in Pachuca. The reporter was accused by Esteban Mercado, coordinator of the campaign of Mirna Hernández, a federal deputy hopeful, of disturbing the peace and damaging urban facilities by photographing representatives of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who were giving away promotional items before the electoral process last July 1.
On June 24, Said Hernández, head of information of the magazine Tucán, was attacked and wounded with a knife by three men in the capital of the state of Oaxaca, when we was arriving home in Colonia Figueroa. Those presumed to be responsible were arrested within minutes after the event.
On June 14 Victor Manuel Báez Chino, a reporter for the daily Milenio El Portal and for the digital medium Reporteros Policíacos, was found dead hours after having been deprived of his freedom by armed men in his offices in the city of Xalapa, Veracruz. The General Prosecutors Office (PGJ) in Veracruz blamed Los Zetas.
On June 24, journalist Patricia Castellanos was hit while covering a demonstration by young people from the group Yo Soy 132 in the capital of Oaxaca state, after the demonstrators had passed in front of a public park where a festival was going on in support of Enrique Peña Nieto, then presidential candidate of the PRI party, whose supporters began verbal attacks against them.
On July 10, unknown persons threw an explosive device against the offices of the supplement La Silla of the newspaper El Norte in Monterrey, Nuevo León. The explosion caused damage to windows in the façade of the building, but there were no personal injuries. This was the fourth attack with explosives against the branch of El Norte in 21 months. The property was the target of similar attacks on September 20, 2010, January 10, 2011 and March 31, 2011. In all cases damages were only material.
On July 11, the offices of the supplement Linda Vista of the newspaper El Norte, located in the municipality of Guadalupe, Nuevo León were attacked with a grenade and large-caliber weapons. Although the façade and the windows of the upper part of the property showed the impacts of firearms, no person was wounded. Some meters from the building shells were found from AR-15 rifles.
On July 16, Hiram González Machi, a reporter for the daily Nuevo Día of Nogales, Sonora, and host of a news program on local Canal Siete was threatened with death by criminals who caused damage to his home.
On July 24, the General Prosecutors Office of Veracruz reported the disappearance of photo reporter Miguel Morales Estrada, who worked at El Diario of Poza Rica, a city in the northern part of that state. According to the official version, the photographers wife reported the disappearance. Up to the present time, there is still no information as to the journalists whereabouts.
On July 28, journalist and defender of human rights Lydia Cacho was the object of new death threats. The warning arrived through her radio communications equipment. Through the speaker of the radio she heard a male voice warning her not to remain involved with them, followed by a serious threat. Security experts who advise the journalist consider that those responsible for the harassment have access to technology to intercept her radio and get messages to her. After these events, the journalist has taken refuge in Bogota, Colombia, although she has expressed her desire to return to her country.
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On July 29, journalist Cecilia Cota of El Diario of Sinaloa made a formal complaint against Serapio Vargas Ramírez, who has assumed leadership of the non-governmental group Brigada Popular. Annoyed at a note by the reporter, the ex-candidate for federal deputy from the Nueva Alianza party warned her that he is capable of many things and that he has already located her family through the social network Facebook.
On August 9, a group of armed men shot at the facilities of the newspaper El Regional del Sur, located in the northern part of Cuernavaca, Morelos, without any reported injuries.
On August 18 photographer Ernesto Araujo Cano was attacked in a robbery attempt. As a result of the blows to his head that he suffered from the three individuals who intended to take his car, he was diagnosed with brain death. Araujo was a collaborator for El Heraldo of Chihuahua.
On September 3, seven journalists were attacked in the state of Oaxaca by residents of San Pablo Huixtepec, who were looking for two presumed thieves to punish them in public. Members of the community, who used field tools as weapons, attacked David García and Lisbeth Gómez of TV Azteca and Iván Flores and Esteban Marcial of the newspaper Tiempo de Oaxaca, and removed the memory cards from their cameras.
On October 1, journalist Juan de Dios García Davish was deprived of his freedom in front of his family while he was covering a showdown in the city of Montozintla, Chiapas. The detention of the communicator, who is director of Quadratin Chiapas and a correspondent of Milenio, was ordered by a command from security forces, in addition to having his reporting materials taken. One day later he was freed.
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