FOCUS ON THE AMERICAS - International Press Institute

Furthermore, the organizations urged the
government to pass legislation that would
make crimes against the media federal offences,
a reform which Mexican President
Felipe Calderón pledged in September
2010, but which had yet to be implemented
at year’s end.
The federalization of crimes against the media
is expected to reduce the levels of impunity -
which is generated in part also by the corruption
of local governments and public prosecutors
- as well as to send a strong signal that
the federal government will not tolerate such
crimes. Observers have noted that federal authorities
are generally better trained, subject
to greater scrutiny, and have greater resources
than their local counterparts.
Mexican news outlets and press freedom
groups have reported the murder of at least
12 journalists in 2010.
Mexican news outlets and press
freedom groups have reported
the murder of at least 12 journalists
in 2010.
Valentín Valdés Espinosa, a reporter with
the Mexican daily Zócalo Saltillo in the
country’s northeastern state of Coahuila,
was kidnapped, tortured and shot several
times by unidentified assailants on January
7. His body was then dumped outside a
local motel along with a note, addressed to
“everyone,” warning that “this will happen
to anybody who does not understand”.
Zócalo Saltillo stated that unidentified
assailants in two vans
stopped Espinosa at around 11
pm, as he left work in Coahuila’s
capital city, Saltillo, with two colleagues
from the newspaper. The
aggressors forced the three journalists
out of the vehicle, and kidnapped
Espinosa and one of his colleagues.
While Espinosa’s unnamed colleague survived
– his captors beat him severely but
then released him – Espinosa’s body was
recovered in the early hours of January 8.
Above: A man hangs a banner with a picture of slain photojournalist Luis Carlos Santiago on the wall of El Diario de Juarez newspaper in Ciudad Juarez on October 12, 2010.
The banner reads "Whom can we ask justice from?" Journalists from El Diario de Juarez staged a protest outside the premises of the newspaper to demand justice from
President Felipe Calderón on the murders of their two colleagues, and for the 6,700 people that have died in drug killings since the army arrived in early 2008. (REUTERS)
Similarly, to other newspapers in the region,
Zócalo Saltillo had received threats
and been the target of attacks in the past.
On January 16, police found the body of
José Luis Romero, a crime reporter at Radio
Linea Directa, who was abducted at gunpoint
outside a restaurant in Los Mochis on
December 30. Romero’s body was wrapped
in a black bag near Los Mochis city, in
Sinaloa province. Bullet wounds were found
in his head and shoulder, and his hands and
leg were broken, news reports said.
Two journalists were killed within two
weeks in the southern state of Guerrero,
which has seen a surge in drug cartel-related
violence.
Jorge Ochoa Martínez was killed on the
night of January 29 by a gunshot to the
head, outside a restaurant in the municipality
of Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero.
Ochoa Martinez was the editor
and owner of two publications,
El Sol de la Costa and
El Oportuno, which covered
local issues. He was shot in
the face while leaving a party
for a local politician in the town of Ayutla
de los Libres. He was hit with several bullets
from a .38 caliber weapon.
Ochoa's body was found after an anonymous
call was received by police at 10:15
p.m. saying that there was a body in a car
parked between the Mina and Plan de
Ayutla streets near the El Charco de las
Ranas restaurant in Ayutla. Police said
that the car in which the body was found
did not belong to the editor.
Less than two weeks later, on March 12,
Evaristo Pacheco Solís, a reporter for the
Mexican weekly Visión Informativa, was
found shot dead in Chilpancingo, the state
capital of Guerrero. Pacheco was reportedly
shot several times with a small caliber pistol.
Journalists Juan Francisco Rodríguez Ríos
and Maria Elvira Hernández Galeana were
also killed in Guerrero state. On June 28,
the two journalists - husband and wife -
were shot dead by two unknown gunmen
inside an Internet café that they owned in
Coyuca de Benitez, a town located near the
resort city of Acapulco, reports said. Their
eight-year-old son, who was also in the café
at the time of the attack, survived.
Ríos worked for the newspaper El Sol de
Acapulco and for Diario Objetivo de
Chilpancingo as well as for the National
Union of Press Editors, according to a report
in La Vanguardia. His wife Galeana
worked as a freelancer and also accompanied
her husband as a photographer.
Columnist Enrique Villicana Palomare was
murdered in Michoacan, another crime-ravaged
province in central Mexico. The journalist’s
body was found in the city of Morelia,
capital of Michoacan, on April 9, five days
after the columnist was reported missing by
relatives. His throat had been slit. Villicana
wrote for the daily newspaper La Voz de Michoacan,
and also covered attacks by armed
groups against the indigenous Purepecha
group of which he was a member.
Journalist Hugo Alfredo Olivera Cartas
was killed in the province of Michoacan.
The owner and editor of El Día de Michoacán
newspaper, director of the ADN
news agency and a correspondent for La
Voz de Apatzingán, Olivera was found
Lack of thorough police investigations
into any of the murders of
journalists.
dead in his truck early in the morning of
July 6. He had been shot three times in the
head. CPJ reported that unidentified individuals
broke into the offices of Olivera’s
newspaper shortly after the reporter was
found dead, and took away computer hard
drives and flash drives.
Olivera had been the victim of a previous
attack. On February 18, federal police attacked
Olivera Cartas while he was on his
way to cover a shooting in Chiquihuitillo,
Michoacán state, according to news reports.
The newspaper Cambio de Michoacán
said that police pushed Olivera to
the floor and beat him. Olivera filed a
complaint with the National Human
Rights Commission.
Radio journalist Marco Aurelio Martinez
Tijerina with the La Tremenda radio station
in the town of Montemorelos in Nuevo
Leon state was found dead on July 10,
twenty-four hours after he had been abducted,
according to news reports. He had
been shot in the head and his body showed
signs of torture.
Martinez was the head of the news program
“Informativo 800” at XEDD Radio La
Tremenda, and had previously worked for
other news shows at XERN 950AM, TV
Azteca, Grupo Multimedia and W Radio,
according to the EFE news agency.
Two more journalists were murdered in the
last months of 2010 in a region near the U.S.
border, in which a violent stand-off between
rival drug cartels and the Mexican
military has turned into one of the regions
of the world with the highest murder rate.
Luis Carlos Santiago Orozco, a photographer
with the daily El Diario de Juarez, was only
21 years old when he was shot at in his car
on September 16. He died of his injuries.
Photographer Carlos Manuel Sanchez Colunga,
who was travelling in another car, was
also shot at but survived the attack.
Following Santiago’s death, El Diario de
Juarez, the leading newspaper in Ciudad
Juarez, issued an editorial suggesting it
would reduce its coverage of the drug violence
in an effort to keep its journalists safe.
Carlos Alberto Guajardo, a reporter with Expreso
newspaper, was shot dead on November
5 in Matamoros, a town across the U.S.-
Mexican border from Brownsville, Texas.
Guajardo was travelling in a pick-up truck
to report on an eight-hour shoot-out involving
the army, the navy and gunmen
working for the Gulf cartel - one of Mexico's
major drug-trafficking organizations.
A leader of the powerful Gulf drug cartel -
Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, also
known as "Tony the Storm" – had been
killed in the clash.
At least 13 journalists were
abducted in Mexico this
year.
According to the National Defense Secretariat,
the journalist was shot and died in
his pick-up truck while the military was
trying to fight off an attack from a group of
people who were traveling in eight vehicles.
The Secretariat did not specify if Guajardo
was caught in the crossfire or was directly
targeted.
The lack of thorough police investigations
into any of the murders of journalists has
made it difficult to establish which of the
attacks were in connection with their work
as journalists and which may have had
other causes. The frequency of threats issued
to media outlets in connection with
their content suggests that the lion’s share
of the attacks against journalists may be in
connection with their work.
26 IPI REVIEW
IPI REVIEW 27