Mexico’s War on Journalists
August 14, 2015
Mexico’s War on Journalists
by Laura Carlsen
Earlier this summer, Ruben Espinosa fled Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Veracruz after receiving death threats. His work as a photojournalist there had made him an enemy of the state’s governor, who presides over one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a reporter.
On July 31, Espinosa was found beaten and shot dead in a Mexico City apartment.
Eight months ago, Nadia Vera, a student activist and cultural worker, looked boldly into a camera lens and told an interviewer that if anything happened to her, Veracruz governor Javier Duarte and his cabinet should be held responsible. She also fled Veracruz to the nation’s capital after suffering attacks.
On July 31, Nadia Vera was found sexually tortured and murdered, shot point-blank in the same apartment.
Three more women were assassinated in the normally tranquil, upper-middle class neighborhood that afternoon — an 18 year-old Mexican named Yesenia Quiroz, a Colombian identified only as “Nicole,” and a 40 year-old domestic worker named Alejandra. The press generally refers to the case as “the murder of Ruben Espinosa and four women,” relegating the women victims to anonymity even in death.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/14/mexicos-war-on-journalists/