Mexican state government orders life sentence for those who murder journalists

The northern state of Chihuahua, considered to be the most violent in Mexico because of the actions of those in the illicit drug trade there and which is on the border with the United States, ordered that those who murder journalists must face life imprisonment, the state Congress reported yesterday (October 21). Mexico is regarded as the most dangerous country to work in as a journalist and Chihuhua one of its darkest places, with 12 reporters murdered since 1991 and with not one perpetrator having been convicted, according to the Inter American Press Association (IAPA). The Chihuahua Congress on Thursday unanimously adopted life sentence “for the murder of journalists,” it reported on its Web site. The state legislature also decided to apply such a sentence for the most serious cases of kidnapping and extortion and for the murder of police officers. It is the first time that Chihuahua has included in its Penal Code this kind of imprisonment, which will be “for the entire life of the person convicted,” it said. Such a step was “necessary in order to eradicate the high level of criminality that is dominating our society,” the Congressional statement declared. Chihuahua, but especially the frontier town of Ciudad Juárez, its most populated urban area, is the center of the battle that Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón unleashed against drug cartels on his taking office in December 2006. In all, in Mexico 68 men and women in the news media have been murdered since 2000, 11 of them so far this year alone, according to the organization Reporters Without Borders.