Shadow of Organized Crime Hovers Over Wave of Mexican Journalist Killings Tristan Clavel - Insight Crime
go to original March 27, 2017

Scores protested the slaying of journalist Miroslava Breach in Northern Mexico on Saturday (VOA)

The murder of a Chihuahua-based correspondent marks the third killing of a journalist in Mexico this month, a wave of targeted violence for which organized crime may be responsible that also reflects more general trends of rising insecurity.

Miroslava Breach Velducea, the Chihuahua correspondent for the national Mexican news outlet La Jornada, was gunned down in her car on March 23 by unknown assailants as she exited her house to drive her son to school, reported Proceso.

Breach was struck by eight 9 mm bullets at close range, according to La Jornada, suggesting an execution-style killing.

During her career, the journalist had spoken out against human rights violations and the negative impacts of drug trafficking. Among the most recent subjects she investigated was the displacement of hundreds of familes by drug trafficking organizations in Chihuahua, and organized crime's infiltration of local elections.

Breach's death marks the third killing of a journalist this month in Mexico. It was preceded by the slaying of Ricardo Monlui Cabrera in Veracruz on March 19; the journalist was shot at pointblank range while exiting a restaurant with his family, reported La Jornada. In 2010, Monlui's son had denounced being kidnapped, shot and left for dead by municipal police.

And on March 2, Cecilio Pineda Brito was assassinated by two men on a motorcycle in the state of Guerrero. Pineda, who covered the crime beat, had survived a previous attempt on his life in 2015 and had repeatedly received death threats since then. The Guerrero State Attorney General Xavier Olea Peláez said that organized crime was behind his murder, according to El Universal.

It is too early to establish with certainty the responsibility of Mexican organized crime in the three murders, amid a nationwide increase in homicides. Nevertheless, at least two of the killings -- those of Miroslava Breach and Cecilio Pineda -- appear to form part of a trend of journalists targeted for their coverage on crime-related issues. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 74 percent of journalists killed in Mexico since 1992 covered crime, 29 percent covered corruption and 24 percent covered politics.

Read the rest at Insight Crime

Related: Mexico Press Freedom: Murders of Journalists Continue with Impunity (Mexico Voices)

Related: Mexico Arrests Knights Templar Cartel Leader Linked to 35 Murders (UPI)

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