Mexico

2013

  
Mike O'Connor at a 2012 press conference in Culiacán. (Ron Bernal)

Remembering Mike O’Connor

It is a sad end to 2013 for the global press freedom community. With the sudden death of CPJ Mexico Representative Mike O’Connor, 67, on Sunday, Mexican journalists have lost one of their most formidable advocates. Mike will be remembered as someone who was on the forefront of the struggle for press freedom. His superb…

Read More ›

Syria, Iraq, Egypt most deadly nations for journalists

The conflict in Syria, a spike in Iraqi bloodshed, and political violence in Egypt accounted for the high number of journalists killed on the job in 2013. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser

Read More ›

CPJ testifies on challenges to democracy in the Americas

Carlos Lauría’s testimony starts at 1:10 in the video. Carlos Lauría, CPJ’s Americas senior program coordinator, provided testimony before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of US House of Representatives on Tuesday. Lauría emphasized that violence and government harassment are the main emerging trends that illustrate the major challenges facing the press in the Western…

Read More ›

Mexico drops charges in Blancornelas murder attempt

New York, September 6, 2013–The Committee to Protect Journalists is outraged by the decision of a Mexican judge to dismiss charges against Marco Arturo Quiñones Sánchez, one of the gunmen implicated in the 1997 assassination attempt against J. Jesús Blancornelas, founder and former editor of the Tijuana-based weekly magazine Zeta. The editors of Zeta told…

Read More ›

Police remove the body of Alberto López Bello, a crime reporter, from a crime scene in Oaxaca on July 17. (Reuters/Jorge Luis Plata)

Mexico’s special prosecutor hesitates over early cases

Organized crime capos and corrupt politicians have been getting away with murdering journalists in Mexico for so long that there isn’t a reliable count on the number of the dead or a useful way to measure the crushing effects on a democracy when a country’s press is afraid to tell the truth. CPJ research shows…

Read More ›

Mexican crime reporter shot to death in Oaxaca

Mexico City, July 18, 2013–Mexican authorities should conduct an open and thorough investigation into the murder of a crime reporter whose body was found on Wednesday in Oaxaca City, the capital of Oaxaca state, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Alberto López Bello had been badly beaten and shot, government officials told CPJ.

Read More ›

Journalists in exile 2013

Somalis, Syrians flee violence; Iran crackdown deepens Fifty-five journalists fled their homes in the past year with help from the Committee to Protect Journalists. The most common reason to go into exile was the threat of violence, such as in Somalia and Syria, two of the most deadly countries in the world for the profession.…

Read More ›

Several journalists, including Miguel Angel López, have fled Veracruz state fearing reprisal from cartels, gangs, or the government. Here, a soldier is seen standing guard in downtown Veracruz. (Reuters/Edgard Garrido)

Family murdered, Veracruz journalist seeks asylum in US

A fellow newspaper photographer phoned him and said he had to get right over to his parents’ home because something very bad had happened. When Miguel Angel López remembers seeing when he got there was “just blood. You can’t understand that much hatred.” He was talking about the murders of his mother, his father–a senior…

Read More ›

The letter "Z," painted on a hill in the state of Coahuila, refers to the Zetas drug cartel. (Reuters/Tomas Bravo)

What’s risky? In Mexico’s twin cities, journalists don’t know

The Durango state governor was on his way to meet with reporters. Before he arrived, the reporters huddled to decide the question of the moment. It seemed obvious: Why had a former mayor been arrested the day before in what clearly seemed to be a political move? “That was the only question,” a reporter said…

Read More ›

Getting Away With Murder

CPJ’s 2013 Impunity Index spotlights countries where journalists are slain and the killers go free

Read More ›

2013