Crime Reporting No Longer Illegal in Violent Mexican State of Sinaloa Jan-Albert Hootsen - Vocativ
go to original August 6, 2014

Scenes like this one from 2012, when authorities found the dismembered bodies of seven men in Culiacán, remain all too common in the state of Sinaloa. (Reuters)

MEXICO CITY — Making it a crime to report on crime: It sounds like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel. But in Sinaloa, a state in northern Mexico known for being a drug lord’s paradise, it was also briefly the law.

The state’s Congress approved a bill last week prohibiting journalists from publishing stories or photos about crime and violence, save for what’s printed in official government press releases. The government’s rationale was that the law would somehow help the justice system provide people accused of crimes with fair trials. The Mexican public, however, didn’t buy it.

After a popular backlash, Governor Mario López Váldez said he would abolish the law. Lawmakers, meanwhile, tried to convince the public that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding - that they had accidentally rubber-stamped the bill without reading it because they were really busy.

Read the rest at Vocativ

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!