Miami (July 18, 2013).- The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) condemns the killing of journalist Alberto López Bello from the newspaper El Imparcial of Oaxaca, in Mexico. IAPA demands that the government investigate the crime and find solutions that will effectively punish attacks against journalists, violence and lack of safety.
López Bello, age 28, was killed during the early hours of Wednesday July 17. According to local media, information was released around 7:00 a.m. regarding the discovery of two bodies in the neighborhood “La Humedad,” located in the municipality of Trinidad de Viguera just outside of Oaxaca, the capital of the Mexican State. The journalist’s body presented several gunshot wounds and was found next to the body of Alejandro Franco Rojas, who apparently worked for the local police.
The President of the Freedom of the Press and Information Committee and director of the weekly newspaper Busqueda, Claudio Paolillo, expressed his solidarity with López Bello’s family and colleagues. Paolillo stated that “cases like this demonstrate the ineffectiveness and fragility of government policies to ensure the physical integrity of journalists. They also fail to sanction those responsible for the crimes.”
According to the State Police Commissioner, César Alfaro, the bodies presented “severe injuries.” However, the Commissioner did not specify the nature of the attack. The newspaper El Imparcial of Oaxaca condemned the killing in a brief press release and demanded that the crime be promptly solved; a crime that “comes to show the vulnerability to which journalists are exposed daily in their job to provide accurate and prompt information to citizens.”
Paolillo added that “the ineffectiveness of the protection law and the delays at which these acts of violence are punished affect the quality and quantity of news offerings the citizens of Mexico get exposed to. Being afraid of retaliation, the news media and journalists feel compelled to practice self-censorship as an act of survival.”
On May 18, López Bello was taken into custody by state police together with Jacobo Robles, another journalist from El Imparcial, for taking photographs of a sign placed by organized crime on a pedestrian walkway near the local airport. Apparently, the content of the sign linked state officials with the mafias. Police officials removed the journalists’ equipment and telephones and transported them to the Public Safety Headquarters of Santa María Coyotepec, where they were booked. According to the site www.noticias.net.mx, they were later taken to the State of Oaxaca’s Attorney General Offices. Five hours later, the Public Ministry freed them after determining there were no grounds for their arrest.
There has been a growing presence of narco-trafficking in Oaxaca a phenomenon that has recently become a problem to the State’s Capital.
López Bello’s journalistic work is found to be among the possible motives behind the crime as he had been covering police news for El Impartial during the past six years. In October 2007, three journalists from the same newspaper in the municipality of Tuxtepec in Oaxaca were killed. The attack forced the closing of the news-media office in the area. The same office had been the target of constant threats from presumed members of organized crime. The case has not yet been solved.
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please visit http://www.sipiapa.org.
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