Being a Journalist in Mexico Just Keeps Getting Even More Dangerous Javier Garza Ramos - The Washington Post
go to original February 22, 2016

Why So Many Journalists Are Being Murdered In Mexico (TestTube News)

Anabel Flores, a 27-year-old mother of two toddlers, was kidnapped by armed men who stormed her house in the early hours of Feb. 7 in the Mexican city of Orizaba, state of Veracruz. The facts are dramatic, but it’s also an old story: Flores was a reporter, and her fate was similar to that suffered by more than 100 journalists in the past 15 years.

Her body was found two days later, on the evening of Feb. 9. Like many of her slain colleagues, Flores covered the crime beat. And in the state of Veracruz, one of the most violent in Mexico, fraught with violence by drug cartels, this is a high-risk job. Her death was another chilling reminder that a kidnapping almost surely means death for a Mexican journalist. It is a trend that Mexico shares with Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq and Syria, also among the world’s most dangerous places for journalists, where the murder of American reporters Jim Foley and Steve Sotloff at the hands of the Islamic State let the world know that a kidnapping is more likely to end in death than release.

In Mexico, this has been the case in more than half of the 17 murders of journalists since 2014, as documented by the Journalists at Risk project supported by ICFJ and Freedom House. Nine of those 17 reporters, editors or news anchors were kidnapped before being killed. Their bodies were found after their abductions had been reported, and in all cases the authorities launched search operations. But the final, tragic outcomes prove that the government’s response, at both the local and national level, is woefully inadequate.

Journalists have been missing for days before their bodies are found. When Flores was kidnapped, the Veracruz state government announced an operation to look for her. It didn’t work, and she was found dead two days later. The authorities can be even more clueless, as evidenced by the case of Moisés Sánchez, also in Veracruz. He was kidnapped in the town of Medellín on Jan. 2, 2015, and according to police reports, he was killed the same day. However, authorities took 22 days to find his body — even though they had several suspects in custody who had admitted the crime.

Read the rest at The Washington Post

Related: Fourth Journalist Killed in Mexico This Year: The Owner of a Radio Station Was Stabbed to Death in His Home in Tabasco(Journalism in the Americas)

Related: Anabel Flores Becomes Yet Another Journalist from Mexico's Veracruz to be Killed (Global Voices)

Related: Mexico Press Freedom: Attacks on Journalists Jeopardizes "Strengthening of Democracy" - CIDAC (Mexico Voices)

Related: Owner of Mexican News Outlet Who Was Threatened for His Reporting Killed in Tabasco (CPJ.org)

Related: Let’s Build a New World Through The School of Authentic Journalism (Narco News)

Related: Mexico: 990% Rise in Attacks Against Environmental Activists from 2010 to 2015 (Voices for Mother Earth)

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