Mora García, executive editor of the Nuevo Laredo newspaper El Mañana, was killed early on Friday, March 19 outside his home after he finished his day’s work. He was stabbed more than 20 times. An investigation was begun but the motive for the murder was not immediately clear.
The chairmen of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Rafael Molina, and Impunity Committee, Alberto Ibargüen, sent a note about the incident to Tamaulipas Governor Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, with a copy to Mexican President Vicente Fox, with whom the IAPA had discussed the issue of crimes against journalists during the organization’s meeting earlier this month in the Mexican city of Los Cabos, Baja California state.
Molina, of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, newspaper El Nacional, and Ibargüen, of The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, recalled that the IAPA had announced last Friday that it planned to send reporters from its Rapid Response Unit to investigate this latest murder in Mexico.
Following is the full text of the note:
Mr. Governor:
This is to express our most serious condemnation of the murder of Roberto Javier Mora García, executive editor of El Mañana of Nuevo Laredo. While we declare ourselves to be respectful of the laws of the state, we urge that in the investigation national resources may also be called upon so that this crime may be solved swiftly and in full.
For some years now the Inter American Press Association has been drawing attention to the risks to which reporters working on the Mexico-United States border are exposed and expressing our concern that such a crime as this might cause other journalists to resort to self-censorship.
The murder of Mora García leaves a gaping wound in the work of the press and represents a serious setback for the right of the people of Nuevo Laredo to be informed, and we therefore trust that all state and federal resources will be deployed so that those responsible may be identified and subjected to the full force of the law.
FUENTE: nota.texto7
