Mexico (AFP)
Two journalists were shot dead Friday in Mexico, bringing to three the number of reporters murdered this week in this country, and nine this year, officials said.
Jorge Celestino Ruiz, who worked for the newspaper El Grafico de Xalapa, was shot dead Friday night in the municipality of Actopan, Veracruz state (east), confirmed to AFP the mayor of the city, Paulino Dominguez.
According to a police source, who requested anonymity, Ruiz's home was "shot at" in October. "Shots were also fired at his vehicle to intimidate him," the source added, without further details.
According to the journalist's colleagues, Jorge Celestino Ruiz no longer signed his articles to keep a low profile.
The murder came less than 24 hours after the director and editor-in-chief of the Zihuatanejo Verdad news site, Edgar Alberto Nava, killed him in the southern state of Guerrero, according to the local prosecutor's office.
Nava, who was also a city council employee, "received a bullet fired by a 9mm weapon," the source said.
Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries for the press, with more than 100 journalists killed since 2000 amidst violence linked to drug trafficking and political corruption. Most of these crimes go unpunished.
On Tuesday, the body of Rogelio Barragan, director of the news portal Guerrero Al Instante, was found in the trunk of an abandoned car in the state of Morelos (center) with injuries to his head.
Meanwhile, the premises of the local daily El Monitor in Parral, Chihuahua state, were attacked on Wednesday with molotov cocktails, without causing any casualties. As a result, the newspaper announced that it would stop publishing political or news articles in the hope of avoiding further aggression.
By 2018, ten journalists had been murdered in different parts of the country. According to the count of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Mexico is the country where the largest number of journalists have been killed since the beginning of 2019.
© 2019 AFP