Three journalists have been killed in Mexico in the last two weeks, the latest, Lourdes Maldonado, shot sitting in a car over the weekend in the northern border city, Tijuana.
Mexico is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists.
Nearly 150 have been killed in the last 20 years, according to an advocacy group, Article 19.
Maldonado’s killing inspired a nationwide, journalist-led protest on Tuesday.
In Mexico City, demonstrators held a vigil and signs that read, “You can’t kill the truth by killing journalists.”
MEXICAN JOURNALIST PALOMAR FIERRO, SAID:
“I’m here with a lot of grief because more than 100 journalists have been murdered in the last couple of years, no matter how many times we’ve protested.”
In a statement, Article 19 said: “It is a matter of urgency that state and federal authorities prevent attacks, protect journalists when they are victims, and investigate crimes committed against the press with due diligence.”
The country’s president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has been criticized for not acting to protect reporters.
His government said they’d work to solve Maldonado’s killing in hopes of preventing more like it.
Mexican journalist Lourdes Maldonado López was shot and killed in her car in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico on Sunday, Jan. 23, a couple of years after telling President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that she feared for her safety due to her job.
López, who covered corruption in politics for a host of outlets over the course of her career, was the second journalist from Tijuana and the third Mexican journalist to be killed so far in 2022.
Demonstrations were held Tuesday in more than a dozen cities across Mexico to protest the killings of three journalists in the last two weeks.
Dozens of reporters, photographers, and supporters marched down a central boulevard in Tijuana in the evening, holding up signs with slogans like “Stop the Killing of Journalists, Not One More Death!”
Inside the palace, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador faced journalists at his daily news briefing and promised again those responsible for the latest slaying would be punished, that there would not be impunity.
But precedent is not encouraging. López Obrador’s Interior Undersecretary Alejandro Encinas said recently that more than 90% of murders of journalists and rights defenders remain unresolved, despite a government system meant to protect them.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists puts the percentage at 95%, said its Mexico representative Jan-Albert Hootsen.
