Mexico

The tortured and decapitated body of 39-year-old María Elizabeth Macías Castro was found on a Saturday evening in September 2011. It had been dumped by the side of a road in Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican border town ravaged by the war on drugs. Macías, a freelance journalist, wrote about organized crime on social media under the pseudonym "The Girl from Laredo." Her murder, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, was the first in which a journalist was killed in direct relation for reporting published on social media. It remains unsolved.

New York, July 6, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the arrest of prominent Mexican journalist Sanjuana Martínez Thursday in Nuevo León under unclear circumstances related to a civil custody dispute. The judge who ordered the detention was the subject of critical reporting by Martínez in 2008.

New York, June 7, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the final approval yesterday of a constitutional amendment that makes attacks on the press a federal offense in Mexico, a country where journalists are regularly targeted for their work.    

On May 4, CPJ reported the murder of two Mexican photographers and a former photojournalist in the Veracruz state of Mexico.  Also in Veracruz, a month prior, CPJ documented the killing of journalist Regina Martinez Perez and recognized Veracruz as one of the most dangerous places for the press.  Senior America's Program Coordinator, Carlos Lauria, speaks to National Public Radio (NPR) Tell Me More in New York on the alarming number of journalists killed in Mexico.