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Mexican Crime Reporters Risk Becoming The Story

A woman lights a candle during a tribute to slain Mexican journalists at the Monument of Independence in Mexico City on May 5. The vigil took place to protest violence against the press after the brutal murders of four journalists in Veracruz state.
Sashenka Gutierrez
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EPA/Landov
A woman lights a candle during a tribute to slain Mexican journalists at the Monument of Independence in Mexico City on May 5. The vigil took place to protest violence against the press after the brutal murders of four journalists in Veracruz state.

Mexico is reeling from another round of brutal murders of journalists. Four journalists and photographers who covered the police beat have been killed in eastern Mexico's crime-ridden state of Veracruz.

There's a new call for the federal government to take measures to protect journalists in a country where more and more reporters censor themselves out of fear.

The ceremony to remember the most recent killings took place last weekend in Mexico City on the steps of the Monument of Independence between statues depicting peace and law.

A mourner holds up a copy of <em>Proceso</em> magazine with investigative reporter Regina Martinez on its cover at the vigil in Mexico City last week. At the end of April, Martinez's body was found in her bathroom, beaten and strangled.
Yuri Cortez / AFP/Getty Images
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AFP/Getty Images
A mourner holds up a copy of Proceso magazine with investigative reporter Regina Martinez on its cover at the vigil in Mexico City last week. At the end of April, Martinez's body was found in her bathroom, beaten and strangled.

As the names of murdered journalists were called, the emotional crowd responded: "He shouldn't have died."

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more than 45 journalists have been killed or disappeared in Mexico since 2006. Some press advocacy organizations put the number much higher. They are among the many victims in an organized crime free-for-all that has killed more than 50,000 Mexicans in that time period.

The Latest Killings

Last Thursday, the dismembered bodies of two news photographers, a former photojournalist and another woman were found stuffed in sacks, floating in a canal in the port city of Veracruz in eastern Mexico.

Five days earlier, the body of Regina Martinez, an investigative reporter for the respected newsweekly Proceso, was found in her bathroom, beaten and strangled.

"The thing that characterized her reporting is that Regina gave voice to the vulnerable, to indigenous people and to the oppressed," says a Veracruz-based reporter who fled to Mexico City for his security and asked to remain anonymous.

"The situation of journalism in Veracruz has reached very high levels of fear," he says. "Perhaps it's safer for reporters to become like speaker cabinets that only say what others tell us. And we never investigate."

A priest sprinkles holy water on the coffins of photojournalists Gabriel Huge (bottom) and Guillermo Luna during a public Mass in Veracruz last week. Killed by unknown assailants, the bodies were found dumped in plastic bags by a canal in Veracruz less than a week after the killing of Regina Martinez.
Felix Marquez / AP
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AP
A priest sprinkles holy water on the coffins of photojournalists Gabriel Huge (bottom) and Guillermo Luna during a public Mass in Veracruz last week. Killed by unknown assailants, the bodies were found dumped in plastic bags by a canal in Veracruz less than a week after the killing of Regina Martinez.

In fact, this is already the case in many Mexican states where the drug cartel war is raging, particularly where Los Zetas are active. This organized crime group, founded by army deserters, is especially savage against journalists who report unflattering crime news, or who take payoffs from rival cartels.

Attempt To Protect Journalists

With the upsurge in reporter killings, Mexico has attempted to protect journalists. Six years ago, it created a special prosecutor for crimes committed against journalists within the federal attorney general's office. But it's toothless, says journalism advocate Rogelio Hernandez.

"The special prosecutor to investigate the cases of journalists doesn't have a budget, a staff, or the backing of the attorney general, the Interior Ministry or the presidency. It's a game," Hernandez says. "They have demonstrated total inefficiency, ineffectiveness and ignorance."

The Mexican attorney general's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Manuel Clouthier is a congressman from the northwestern state of Sinaloa, where the drug cartels are rampant. He's also a former newspaper publisher who is currently running a quixotic independent campaign for the presidency. He says it's easy to blame the drug cartels for threats against the media, but his experience suggests they are not the main problem.

"The majority of the aggressions against journalists come from those in power, not from organized crime," Clouthier says.

Mexicans hold up posters of journalists who have been killed in recent years, at a recent vigil in Mexico City.
John Burnett / NPR
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NPR
Mexicans hold up posters of journalists who have been killed in recent years, at a recent vigil in Mexico City.

He says that up to 2009, when he was publisher of the Noreste newspaper in Culiacan, Sinaloa, threats and intimidation directed at reporters and his own family came more from politicians in power than from drug traffickers.

Last week, overwhelming majorities in both houses of the Mexican Congress approved a bill that would create urgent measures to protect journalists and human rights defenders. Among other actions, it would create a rapid response team that would move threatened journalists to a safe place within 36 hours.

The bill awaits the president's signature.

Such a law might ease anxiety in Veracruz, where skittish news directors have reportedly ordered their reporters not to attend the funerals of their dead colleagues, fearing more attacks.

This story was produced for broadcast by Marisa Peñaloza.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

As NPR's Southwest correspondent based in Austin, Texas, John Burnett covers immigration, border affairs, Texas news and other national assignments. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, he won national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association for continuing coverage of the immigration beat. In 2020, Burnett along with other NPR journalists, were finalists for a duPont-Columbia Award for their coverage of the Trump Administration's Remain in Mexico program. In December 2018, Burnett was invited to participate in a workshop on Refugees, Immigration and Border Security in Western Europe, sponsored by the RIAS Berlin Commission.