MIAMI, Florida (May 15, 2017)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today voiced outrage at the murder of journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas committed today in Sinaloa state, the fifth such killing this year in Mexico, and called on the authorities once and for all to assume their responsibilities to investigate, identify and bring to justice those guilty of this and other crimes against members of the press.
The chairman of the IAPA's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Roberto Rock, deeply regretted and condemned the murder of Valdez Cárdenas, a well-known journalist and author "who had the respect and affection of his colleagues."
Valdez Cárdenas, 50, was correspondent of the daily newspaper La Jornada in Sinaloa since 1998 and founder of the weekly Ríodoce. According to several local media at around midday unidentified persons traveling in a vehicle in the center of the city of Culiacán, the Sinaloa capital, intercepted his car and shot at him. He was killed just a few feet from the Ríodoce offices.
In 2011 Valdez Cárdenas was awarded by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) with its International Press Freedom Prize and that same year the Ríodoce team received the Maria Moors Cabot Award. Valdez Cárdenas late last year presented his book titled "Narcoperiodismo, la prensa en medio del crimen y la denuncia" (Narcojournalism, The Press Amid Crime and Denunciation).
Rock, editor of the news portal La Silla Rota, Mexico City, Mexico, declared, "The feeling of lack of defense increases daily in this country in the face of impunity and lack of legal action in the numerous cases of attacks upon and murders of journalists."
Also murdered in Mexico this year were Max Rodríguez, a journalist with Colectivo Pericú in Baja California Sur, on April 14; Miroslava Breach Velducea, correspondent of La Jornada and stringer for Norte and El Diario de Chihuahua in Chihuahua, on March 23; Ricardo Monlui Cabrera, editor of the daily newspapers El Político de Xalapa and El Político de Córdoba and the Web site www.elpolitico.com.mx of Veracruz, on March 19, and Cecilio Pineda Birto, stringer for the newspapers La Voz de Tierra Caliente and El Universal, among others in Altamirano, Guerrero, on March 2.
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 publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida.
