Make investigation of murders of journalists a priority, Mexico’s incoming president urged

IAPA President Rafael Molina declared that the murder of journalists in Mexico – seven so far this year – “should be a priority on the agenda of President-elect Felipe Calderón as soon as he takes office next month.”

“We are aware of his commitment to press freedom as a guarantee of the democratic process and I have no doubt that he will do everything in his power to put an end to the violence and impunity. The press community and society at large require that,” added Molina, editor of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic newspaper El Día.

The latest murder victim was Roberto Marco García, a reporter covering the police beat, who was killed on Tuesday (November 21) on the Veracruz to Alvarado highway in Veracruz state close to the township of La Matosa in Alvarado county. García, who wrote for the magazines Testimonio of Veracruz and Alarma of Mexico City, was riding a moped when he was knocked down by a PT-Cruiser minivan bearing Mexico City license plates. Several people got our of the vehicle and as García lay on the pavement, still alive, leveled their 9mm caliber pistols and shot him at point-blank range. The assailants abandoned the minivan and fled in another vehicle waiting nearby.

García, 40, had been a stringer for Alarma for 10 years and was regarded by the magazine’s editors as a good reporter and “a fighter,” according to news editor Miguel Angel Rodríguez. García’s colleagues at the two magazines said he had told them of having received threats previously. In their opinion the information he reported was sound and his news reports were “the best” published by Testimonio magazine.

The IAPA’s Molina, expressing concern at this latest murder, called November “a deadly month for the press community in Mexico.” He added that while the motives for García’s death were not yet clear “it is not difficult to imagine that given the kind of execution it was an attempt to silence an annoying voice.”

According to information compiled by the IAPA, also murdered in Mexico during 2006 are journalists Jaime Arturo Olvera Bravo, in Michoacán state (March 9), Ramiro Téllez Contreras, Tamaulipas (March 10), Enrique Perea Quintanilla, Chihuahua (August 9), Bradley Ronald Hill, Oaxaca (October 27), Misael Tamayo Hernández, Guerrero (November 10) and José Manuel Nava Sánchez, Mexicio City (November 16), while still missing are Rafael Ortiz Martínez, Coahuila, who disappeared on July 8, and Alfredo Jiménez Mota, whose whereabouts have remained unknown since April 2.

As part of its battle to eliminate impunity, the IAPA is to hold a hemisphere conference on “The Judiciary, the Press and Impunity” in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in July 2007.

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